Cold as Death
by Gramm485
Summary: The S.T.A.R.S survivors dig up information on a secret Umbrella facility in Alaska. They go to check it out, but they quickly find that they are not alone. Sequel to Umbrella's Revenge.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1: Hook, Line, and Sinker**

Jill Valentine walked down the busy sidewalk. A small backpack hung over her left shoulder, filled with sweaty gym clothes. Casually, she moved with the stream of people as they went about their daily lives. Some went into shops and buildings along the way, only to be replaced by more on their way out. Like the circulatory system, the flow of people moved all around her.

It had been about two weeks since the fall of Umbrella. Jill, Chris, Barry, Claire, and Rebecca had all contributed to it in Washington. Umbrella's Chairman and circle of leaders had since been arrested. Since that happened, the world was seeing less and less of the red and white Umbrella logo plastered everywhere. The company supplied many things for the entire world, so Jill figured it would be a while before all of it was gone. Some of their products were still being used, however. Medical wonders like First Aid spray were utilized in hospitals all over the world. As much as Jill hated to admit it, it was an Umbrella product that saved lives, hers included.

One thing still troubled the former S.T.A.R.S teammates: some of Umbrella's staff was unaccounted for. The missing ranks ranged from simple workers with normal jobs, to high class researchers and business executives. People in positions of great power. Jill thought about it as she walked in the flow of people.

"_Whoever hasn't been found yet has deep ties, not to mention a ton of cash. They have the resources to escape the legal system. The FBI, CIA, and NSA hasn't been able to track any of them. None of them could ever account for Umbrella's secrets._"

Umbrella had it's public side, but it's true face was something to be feared. No one knew what kind of stockpiles of viral weaponry or bio-organic weapons it had. With their help of toppling Umbrella, Jill and her friends had one request for the government: to continue to root out hidden Umbrella strongholds, and dispose of the abominations there.

Now that Albert Wesker had resurfaced with an unknown company with the intent of taking over Umbrella's research, the team wanted to quickly eradicate the rest of the corporation. The last thing they (and the rest of the world) needed was something that took Umbrella's place.

The President denied their request, under the condition that the American Nation would not approve of a group of mercenaries. He assured them that the matter would be dealt with properly. So they acted on their own accord, without the knowledge of the government. That didn't exactly make their actions legal.

Jill continued on her way. A few meters behind her was a man walking in her direction. This was nothing unusual, given that Jill was surrounded by people, but he had been following Jill for several blocks, ever since she left the gym. He was dressed as an average civilian, but Jill didn't see the gun holstered underneath the coat he wore.

When Jill crossed the street, so did he. When she stopped at a vending machine for a bottle of water, he looked casually into the newspaper vending machines. She hadn't spotted him yet. After taking a drink from her water, she stowed it in the side of her back pack. She cut around a corner and onto a less crowded street. The man followed patiently.

"_I hope that Rebecca and Claire were able to get some information from Leon,_" she thought to herself. "_He said he'd help us once he was in the government and had access to Umbrella's case._"

During Umbrella's trial, Leon had surfaced and gave his story as well. He then joined the U.S government. Some special forces thing. Jill couldn't remember if it was Secret Service or some other shady organization. None of them knew why, either.

Jill decided to take a short-cut. She didn't feel like waiting at the busy intersection up ahead. Down another street, she turned into an alley. The man following her broke off from the few people along the sidewalk and followed her. The alley turned, and the public lost sight of Jill. The man drew his gun. A black suppressor was screwed into the barrel of it. No one would hear or see him, and she would just become another statistic; an unlucky woman who was mugged and shot in some back alley.

Coming down the opposite side of the alley was another suspicious looking man. He wore dirty, tattered jeans and a green hooded sweatshirt with the hood pulled over his head. He walked with his head down, hands stuffed in his pockets. Jill couldn't see his face, but tried to veer a little ways away from him. The man following her also saw him, and tucked his gun behind his back, and pretended to scratch an itch. He would take them both down. Some stray vagrant wouldn't get in his way.

The hooded man passed by the man following Jill. As they passed, his arm snapped out and grabbed the man's wrist and twisted it forward. Surprised, the man jerked forward, bent over. The hooded man drove his knee into his midsection and dropped his elbow on the back of his head. The gun clattered to the street. Grabbing the scruff of his coat he pulled the stunned man up and delivered a hook punch across the man's face. He dropped back against the pavement, groaned, and passed out.

Jill turned around at the sound of the scuffle, but the man was already unconscious.

"That was fast," she commented.

The man flipped his hood down, revealing his spiky brown hair. It was Chris. Jill joined him as they checked out the body of the unconscious man. Chris ejected the magazine from the gun, then pulled back the slide. The chambered bullet popped out. He threw the magazine in the dumpster and the gun down the sewer drain. Jill took his wallet and had a look. She pulled out an Umbrella identification badge.

"Robert Conner," she read off the tag. "Clearance: level 3." She showed Chris.

"Is he on the list of exec's that went missing?" Chris asked.

"No, never even heard of him."

Chris thought about it.

"What's he do?" he asked.

"It doesn't say. It just says he works for section TE-96," Jill replied.

Chris frowned. "He's nothing more than an assassin. A suppressor like that isn't something they give to anybody."

"It looks that way," Jill said. She grimaced. "I guess it's time to move on."

The team was forced to move from city to city whenever Umbrella became aware of their presence. Chris predicted that their monitoring would die down after the world was informed. Umbrella proved more relentless than usual with this new attack. They seemed to think that once S.T.A.R.S was dead, their problems would be over.

Chris dug through the assassin's pockets and pulled out a cell phone, then called the police with it. If he was connected with Umbrella, they would arrest him. They had kept the ID badge they found on him. With a level three card, they could get into some more Umbrella files, and it had been about time they got a lucky break. Rebecca had 'borrowed' an Umbrella laptop from Washington. It was stuck in an Umbrella limousine at the trials. They hadn't dared to try accessing it without a pass card.

Several weeks earlier, Chris was almost beaten to death in an interrogation, and his sister was almost mutilated in an attempt to break him. Throw in an unknown sniper which had wounded Rebecca in Washington, Jill was aching to hit Umbrella back. But first, they had to leave the city and regroup.

She and Chris left the alley and rejoined the circulation of people on the street.

"Oh, and next time, Chris," she added. "You can be the bait."


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter 2: Digging**

Boxes cluttered the hotel room as the team packed up. They were filled with clothes and files. A few had weapons disassembled in them. They were almost ready to leave. The only thing left to do was try the computer. If it failed, they would leave it behind in case they were tracked. Rebecca booted it up. Among the team, she had the most experience with computers.

Claire hovered over her shoulder. She was in college before the incident at Raccoon City, so she was up to date on technology as well. Barry didn't have a clue, so he continued with the packing. Chris and Jill half watched them and half helped Barry.

Rebecca went into the secure section of the company's computer network. Even though the company was evil, they didn't care that their database could be entered from outside an Umbrella office. It prompted her for a name and identification code.

"Claire, read it off to me," she said. Claire flipped the card over and peered above the magnetic strip and groaned. No wonder Umbrella could afford to network outside their buildings. The ID number was twenty digits long, consisting of both letters and numbers.

"_Well, that prevents the casual hacker,_" Claire thought. No one would stumble into the network accidentally. "_I figure there's probably some pretty nifty firewalls, too._"

"Alright, here it comes," she warned. "737069-SM8355-15TYG0-96."

Rebecca typed it in to the letter. This was the moment of truth. She hit enter, and the computer processed the input. At first, nothing happened, and Rebecca began to sigh in disappointment. Then, the screen cleared, and revealed a number of files.

"Yes!" cheered Rebecca.

"Chris, Barry, Jill. We've got something," called Claire excitedly. They all hurried over. Now came the tedious process of weeding through everything, and there were a lot of files in this section of the server. Rebecca browsed through a few of them. They had nothing unusual on them. Some were lists of medical equipment, others had personnel files of workers.

"I'll just go through them one by one, and look for things that are unusual," Rebecca said. The rest of them left her get to work while they finished packing.

Chris helped his sister pile clothes into a suitcase. Over the past few weeks, she had changed incredibly. She had no military or law enforcement training like the rest of them did.. She was just an average college girl who stumbled into the fight. She was getting stronger and stronger. After Raccoon City and Rockfort Island, she became a soldier. Every other day she went to the firing range and honed her weapon skills. When she wasn't doing that, she was at the gym with Jill and Barry. She hadn't been able to beat Jill in a boxing match yet, but then again, Jill was a little better than normal.

Even though she was going through this remarkable transformation, Claire remained the same person she always was: beautiful, intelligent, and kind. For that, Chris was proud of her.

Jill and Barry pulled a few boxes out of the apartment and left them in the hall. Chris hoped none of them had concealed weapons in them. They didn't need someone calling the cops on them after they rummaged through their stuff while they had their backs turned.

For the most part, Jill and Barry were their same old selves. Chris trusted them with his life, and they were good soldiers fighting for a just cause. Jill might be a little gung ho at times, and sometimes, Barry liked guns a little too much, but Chris wouldn't change them for the world.

An hour passed. Rebecca still hadn't found anything. After making several trips to Rebecca's pickup truck in the underground parking lot, the rest of them sat along the bare apartment walls.

"Got something!" she called. The four of them sprang up and looked at what Rebecca had unearthed in Umbrella's files.

"A large quantity of liquid nitrogen and medical supplies were shipped to Facility #7-b12 before the company started to go under." She read aloud. At first none of them got it. Rebecca rolled her eyes and spelled it out for them.

"Liquid nitrogen? As in freezing things? Why would the company need several tons of it? Plus, all of the medical supplies include DNA splicing material like restriction enzymes and recombinant plasmids."

"You think that this is a research lab?" asked Barry.

"It makes sense. Liquid nitrogen for cold storage, and the gene splicing is a dead giveaway." said Claire. Rebecca agreed.

"This was just a shipping manifest. Details are encrypted for Level 5 access only. Something this secret would be worth checking out."

"Where is Facility 7-b12?" asked Chris.

Rebecca read off the coordinates supplied by the file.

"Smack dab in the middle of Alaska," he confirmed.

The computer's screen flickered, then pixelated. The distorted screen scrambled, then went black.

"Shit," Rebecca swore. "Umbrella blocked us. They just hit us with a virus."

Quickly, she jotted down the latitude and longitude along her wrist with a pen before she forgot the digits.

Chris gave the order. "Time to leave. Leave the laptop."

They all left the bare room and piled onto the elevator. It slowly descended. Chris and Claire got off on the first floor.

"We'll check out and cover our tracks. Meet us out front in five."

Chris didn't like their current situation. When Umbrella didn't hear from their assassin, they would send more. The fact that they knew they hacked their database with the Conner's ID proved that they were there. The faster they got out the better. He and Claire split the paperwork for their leaving, and left out the front door.

Across the street from the hotel, Chris spotted two men leaving a car. Well dressed in suits, they both had sunglasses on. They wouldn't have looked out of the ordinary unless they hadn't been just standing there, slowly scanning the front of the building. Chris grabbed Claire's shoulder and pushed her down behind a parked car. She yelped in surprise.

"Across the street. Two of them." he said. "Pretend to tie your shoe, don't draw attention."

Claire complied, miming the action of tying her laces. Chris propped his arm on top of the car and propped his head on it, facing away from the men. He pulled out a phone and dialed a number. They only had two cell phones between them, and luckily Barry had the other right now.

"Hello?" came his voice.

"Barry, we have two possible Umbrella hitmen outside the hotel. Do not pick us up. We'll call you when it's clear."

There was a pause in the earpiece.

"Alright, good luck," said Barry

He closed the phone and dropped it in his pocket, speaking to Claire quickly.

"Claire, undo your hair. Don't let them see your face. Start walking away, I'll be right behind you."

Claire undid her ponytail, and her long brown hair hung loose. It helped hide her face. She turned and walked down the sidewalk. Chris counted two seconds, then followed. As they did, they passed a window with a large glass display. Chris saw the clear reflection. The two men in suits were walking across the street in their direction.

"_Shit, they made us!_" Chris thought. "Claire, they're coming. Walk faster, but don't panic. We'll try to loose them in the public. There's a chance they don't know it's us."

They wouldn't dare to try anything while people were watching. The assassin that Chris knocked out with Jill had a gun. What about these two? What was their strategy? Chris forced himself to stare straight ahead.

"_Do not look behind you!_" he ordered himself. "_They'll know that you know they're tailing you._"

Chris and Claire weaved in between the pedestrians. Chris had no idea how close the men were now. He hadn't gotten a good look at them. There was no way he could tell what their opponents could do. He did, however, have an idea.

"Whatever happens, don't turn around Claire." he muttered. She nodded her head, confirming what he said. Chris picked out a person walking towards him and deliberately brushed against him. Chris and the pedestrian bounced off of each other, turning each other around.

"Watch it, punk!" he snarled. As he chewed the innocent guy out, his eyes quickly darted to the two men. They were about quarter of a block behind them, walking side by side. There weren't especially threatening looking, but that didn't mean they weren't dangerous. One had short blond hair, and the other had a black ponytail and a goatee.

The person that Chris bumped into flipped him off before walking off. Chris turned around, still maintaining the act that he was pissed and hadn't seen them. Claire had gotten ahead of him during his mock scuffle. He quickened his pace slightly, and caught up with her.

They couldn't shoot them at this range, not with all these people. But what if they had something else planned? They could get close, and give them a quick poke with a mechanical syringe and lethally inject them. If they retaliated, they would be viewed as the attackers, and they would die anyway. He couldn't get Claire away safely either. They would just split up. She was no match for them one on one.

"_This is bad. We need to lose them_," Chris thought. Ahead of them was a store. That was their chance. They had to turn the tables on them.

"Claire, walk straight into that store, and head for the back." he commanded quietly.

She did as he told, and entered through the sliding doors. Chris tried to follow casually behind her, as if he wasn't trying to stick close to her. The two men were beginning to get closer. Inside the store, he followed Claire as she strutted around shoppers, cutting through the pharmacy aisles and hardware. Chris ventured a look behind them. He figured if they still followed them, they knew who they were. No need to keep up appearances.

They were gone. Chris figured that they were along the aisle next to them. Two men following a young man and woman looked a little suspicious inside. Ahead of his sister, Chris could see the door that led to the stockroom.

Chris whispered to his sister, "Claire, go straight through that door and run. Look for a door that leads outside." He slipped the cell phone into her hand. "Meet up with the others."

Claire put the phone in her pocket. Chris could tell that she disagreed with him. She wasn't going to leave him. Hopefully, she would.

Claire entered the door and immediately dashed left. Chris entered, and hand pushed the swinging door shut behind him, then crouched behind where it would open. Luckily, it was late in the day, so the stockroom was empty. Most of the store workers were out on the floor or at the registers. His heart thundered as he wait in ambush.

"_Go, Claire..._" he thought.

The door opened. Chris saw the first man enter. He threw himself against the door, and shoved it into the second man, pushing him back into the store. He kicked at the first one, catching the blond man by surprise in the stomach. The man recoiled against some shelving. Chris punched and hit him in the face. The man returned the favor and struck Chris. By now, the assassin's bearded partner had burst through the door. He had a small cylinder in his hand. It was a syringe, just like Chris thought. He tried to stab Chris with it, but missed.

Chris grabbed the bearded man's arm and twisted it, putting him into an armbar. Quickly, he tried to pry the syringe from his grasp. As he did, the blond man kicked him across the face. The syringe clattered to the floor as Chris fell. The blond man went to retrieve it.

As he bent to pick it up, a foot connected with his face. Claire was back! The blond assassin stood up careening from the strike, holding his nose, his sunglasses lying in pieces at his feet. He tripped and knocked over a stack of boxes, falling over them. With her foot, Claire kicked the syringe behind her. The bearded man advanced on Claire, throwing a kick at her. She dodged back quickly, delivering her own kick to his stomach, then palming him in the face.

The assassin rocked back, but recovered before Claire had a chance to attack again. The bearded man punched her across the face, and Claire sprawled back with a grunt.

Chris tackled the bearded man from behind. He pushed him into the warehouse shelves, then threw him on this back. Diving on top of him, he proceeded to deliver punch after punch to his head.

"Chris, behind you!" screamed Claire. Chris looked behind him and saw the other assassin on his feet. He charged Chris and kicked at him. Chris blocked it, but caught the following punch the assassin threw in the jaw. His head bounced off the concrete and he blacked out. The blond man pulled a combat knife from his belt.

Claire came right behind him and elbowed him in the back of the head. He stumbled, turned and slashed. Claire gasped as the point of the blade cut her shoulder. She pulled away, holding the cut. The assassin smiled. Claire's earlier kick to his head caused his nose to start bleeding. She could see the blood stain his teeth as it seeped into his mouth.

He slowly advanced on, the knife in his right hand like a dagger, his left out in front of him in a fist. He swiped at her. The blade was nowhere close to Claire, but she jumped back anyway. She was scared, and the man saw that. He was playing with her. He swiped again and laughed. Claire, shaking, put her arms in a fighting stance like Jill had shown her. The assassin swiped again, this time with the intent to kill.

To his surprise, Claire blocked his stab. She punched him in the ribs, then chopped him in the neck. He gasped as his trachea was assaulted. He wheezed in anger, and lunged at Claire again. Something caught his arm. It was Chris. The assassin looked and promptly received a bone shattering hook punch to the face. He crumpled and hit the floor.

Both of them stood there, out of breath and sweating. Chris had a cut on his forehead and Claire's left eye socket was beginning to turn black.

With the assassins unconscious, both of them ran. They found the door in the stockroom. Going through it set off the fire alarm. The shrill cry followed them as they ran into the back alley. Chris took the phone from Claire and dialed Barry.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter 3: Road Trip**

"I told you I'm fine!" said Claire for what seemed like the hundredth time. She kept pushing way both Chris and Rebecca's hands. "If you think this is something, you should have seen that shiner I got back in high school."

She was sandwiched between Chris and Rebecca in the back seat of the pickup truck. Rebecca had stitched the cut on Chris's head. Now, both of them were fretting over her black eye, which had swollen considerably. She had an icepack pressed over it, but Chris insisted on constantly having a look, as did Rebecca.

Jill and Barry stifled a laugh. What had happened was no laughing matter, but they couldn't help themselves as the quarrel continued in the back seat. They had long since left the city, and now were booking it towards Alaska. It was going to be a long trip. Barry estimated about about 70 hours. None of them were really looking forward to the long car ride, but it was a small price to pay for the location of an Umbrella lab.

"I wish I could have been there to see you in action, Claire," said Jill from the front seat.

"I've still got a long way to go," Claire said. "I think it was mostly luck. That guy was a little overconfident. Chris was the one who took him down."

"Still, in such a short time, what you did was pretty impressive." Jill said.

Claire modestly accepted her praise.

Ten hours later, Claire stretched as she exited the truck.

"_This sucks,_" she griped. She put her parka on. It was a little chilly in this part of Canada. They had no problem crossing out of the country. There was a tense moment when they were stopped by border patrol. The former S.T.A.R.S team had a large arsenal of weapons in their car. Luckily, Rebecca had an ingenious way of storing them beneath the truck bed in a secret compartment, so they remain undetected.

Claire hated being on the wrong side of the law. They weren't criminals, but like it or not, they were breaking the law.

The sun had already gone down, and they rented a cheap motel for the night. Jill and Chris grabbed a suitcase. They left the rest of their gear in the truck. Way out of the middle of nowhere, they would be safe from Umbrella. Or, at least they should be. They left no trace of themselves back in the city, and the assassin's weren't able to track them either. Still, a few weapons were brought into the motel room.

The night was uneventful, and they left early the next morning.

Another twenty hours, and they bedded down again. The following morning, they stopped at a sporting goods store, and Chris and Barry bought a few cases of ammunition. With the exception of some of their heavier weapons, most of the guns were 9 millimeter. Barry's .357 Colt Python needed larger rounds, and the grenade launcher tucked in the pickup trucks spare tire slot had a few rounds with it. Needless to say, they couldn't by grenade rounds just anywhere.

Chris and Barry left the store with several cases of 9 millimeter's, 12 gauge shotgun rounds, and a few boxes of .357 rounds for Barry's magnum. Enough lead to sink a small boat.

It got colder as they went more north. It was early November, and getting close to winter. The team had been in the southern part of America, where it was still fairly warm. Jill and Claire were in charge of clothing. Jill was able to find some arctic camouflage at an army surplus store. Claire picked up thermal clothing for all of them.

After what seemed an eternity to Claire, they finally arrived in Alaska, back on US soil. Rebecca checked the coordinates on a GPS. They were a few hundred miles south of the location of the Umbrella facility. They still had a ways to go. Early snow had blanketed the countryside.

"We'll get within a few miles, then camp out someplace for a few days," said Chris. The rest of them agreed. There was no sense in raiding a high security facility after they had been cooped up in a truck for three days.


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter 4: Lock and Load**

It was several days later. Chris helped tighten Claire's shoulder holster snuggly. The team was slipping into their gear. First came long underwear, then jeans, then shirts, and finally, the camouflage that Jill picked up. All of them strapped on holsters for their sidearms and threw coats on over them. Outside, it was still snowing and the temperature was hovering around zero. Barry had managed to find a place that rented snowmobiles. That was their main mode of transport to facility in the wilderness.

All of their weapons were packed into several duffel bags. Throwing everything into the truck, they piled in and drove to the rental place. Three snowmobiles were parked out in the snow for them. The young man who worked for the rental place looked suspicious of all of their gear.

"Setting up a few blinds for some hunting," said Barry, after he inquired about all their things.

"_What a lame excuse,_" thought Chris. None of them hunted, and it was probably way to late in the year to be setting up anything, but the man seemed to buy it. Either that, or he didn't care.

Claire put on a pair of red tinted snowboarding goggles that she picked up, and sat down behind Chris after they loaded their gear. Rebecca and Jill took another, and Barry took the third. They pulled out onto the trail and headed out.

Chris could feel his sister clinging around his waist. The wind rushing by his face was about ten degrees colder when they had been standing still. Chris dug his face into his scarf a little more. He stayed a few lengths behind Jill and Rebecca. They had the GPS, so they were leading the rest of them. After about fifteen minutes, Rebecca flagged them to stop. Chris pulled alongside them, and Barry followed suite.

"We're about a half mile out," said Rebecca through her scarf. She pointed in west in it's direction. "We should probably walk from here."

Chris put up his fur lined hood to block the cold breeze from going down his clothes.

"She's right. We're not sure if this place is still up and running. It could be guarded, or it could be empty," said Chris.

"What if it is still being used?" asked Barry.

"Then this turns into an infiltration," said Chris. "We go in, find out what's being done, and stop it if we can. We try to stay invisible and avoid contact with Umbrella. We don't want this to turn into a shootout."

"Most likely," Jill said, "this place was abandoned when Umbrella crashed. Any workers here would have bailed if they could." Chris agreed.

"They wouldn't stick around if they weren't getting paid. Alright, lets gear up."

Out came the cases of weapons. Chris took the SPAS-12 combat shotgun and slung it over his shoulder, then stuck a Glock in his shoulder holster. Barry checked the cylinder of his Python and stuck it on his hip. It would be all he would need if they got into a fight.

Jill took out a small duraluminum case out of a duffel bag and opened it. Inside was a HK MP-5K, a compact submachine gun. She folded the skeletal shoulder stock out, and checked the magazine. The curved clip had a full 30 rounds in it. She then placed another Glock in her sidearm holster.

Chris saw Claire's delight when Barry handed her the M79 manual grenade launcher. He knew that she was quite familiar with how it worked, thanks to Raccoon City and Rockfort Island. She had five standard rounds with it. One of Barry's Beretta 92's joined with it's holster underneath Claire's arm.

Rebecca just took a handgun for herself, but she carried her medical backpack as well. It was heavy enough, so she would rely on the others for support.

Once they loaded up with weapons and ammo, they marched off through the woods and snow. After a few minutes they came to a large clearing. Pulling out a pair of binoculars, Rebecca looked ahead. In the middle of the clearing was a raised section of ground. Set into the side of it was a metal door. Through the falling snow, she could clearly see the Umbrella logo on the door, and the warnings plastered to leave the area for trespassers.

"It's dead ahead," she reported, hand the binoculars around.

"Okay, we go straight in," said Chris. "There's no patrolling guards, or any other signs of life."

They advanced on the door. Upon reaching it, they all drew their guns. Barry kicked the metal door open, and he Jill, and Chris lunged through. The room was dim. A red light dully illuminated the room. No one was inside.

They were standing in an elevator lobby.

"_This must lead to the actually lab_," thought Chris. Shotgun in hand, he pressed the call button. It lit up.

"Well, I guess there's still power," he said. "Lets hope this place was abandoned."

They aimed at the elevator as it arrived. Several thick doors opened and it revealed its interior. It was empty, so they moved in. On the control panel, there were only two buttons: one for the surface, and one for the lab. They lab was fifteen stories beneath them. Jill pressed the button, and the elevator doors sealed, and it began to descend.

"We stick together once we're down. No one goes off alone if at all possible," Chris said. "We don't know what could be down there, and we'll have better chances if we stick together."

The elevator stopped descending, and the doors opened again. The S.T.A.R.S emerged into the hallway ahead of them, scanning for movement. This place was dark as well, and the same red lights glowed along the ceiling. Systematically, they pulled out flashlights. Chris and Jill had tactical lights on their guns, and switched them on as well.

Barry spoke. "Well, we were right about this place being vacated. It looks like this place went into standby." He pointed his flashlight along the ceiling, revealing dark florescent lights. "Those should be on if the facility is being used, not to mention there would be people here.

Jill smirked. "I guess we have the place to ourselves."

The hallway branched out into the gloomy light. To their left was a door, so they opened it and checked out the room. It was a locker room. The room was lined with lockers and cages, no doubt for the facility workers. All of them were empty.

In here, they stripped off their heaviest cold weather gear. It was chilly in this place, but soon their coats, hats, and gloves would be too warm. Their parkas gave way and exposed their Kevlar vests and gun holsters. All of them had matching camo pants. The shading colors of white and gray weren't the best for blending in, but the place was empty anyway.

Though their pants all matched, the rest of their attire complimented how rag-tag they had become. Chris wore a simple black thermal shirt. Rebecca still wore her personal S.T.A.R.S vest from Raccoon City. Both Jill and Barry had sleeveless arctic camouflage on, and Jill had unearthed her S.T.A.R.S beret. Claire didn't look too different from her brother, but she left her green fleece scarf coiled around her neck.

"It's chilly in here, and I don't want to catch a cold," she said as Chris looked at it and opened his mouth, which he promptly shut.

After they had finished preparing, Chris addressed the group with the agreed plan.

"Me and Jill will take point. Barry, watch our backs. Claire, you and Rebecca will be in the middle. We'll scope every corner of this place, and see if we can find out what's here. If it's bio-weaponry, we'll find a way to destroy it."

Claire raised her hand, as if she was in school.

"Umm...how exactly do we do that?" she asked.

"Well, I had an idea for that. I'm sure none of you are going to like it." he said. "depending on the level of the threat, we could see if this place has a self-destruct system." That would be the best way. Engaging any type of bioweapon directly was dangerous, even if they were placed in stasis or containment. If containment failed, they would have a big problem on their hands.

"Well, you're right," Jill said. "That sounds dangerous, but I'm all for it. After all, how many times have we done it between us?"

Not getting the rhetorical question, Rebecca started listing them off. "One in the mansion. Claire hit one underneath Raccoon City, and another in Rockfort..."

Barry waved his hand dismissively. "Rhetorical question, Rebecca. I agree with Chris. We should blow the whole place."

"Hopefully, it won't come to that," Chris said. "But we should start searching now. The less time we spend here, the better."

The moved out of the locker room and advanced down the hall. One section of the wall was a thick metal shutter which they couldn't get through. Further down, the hall split into three. Chris picked one at random, and they moved.

"We need to find a map, or a way to turn the power on." Barry said. They had no idea where they were going, not to mention they could hardly see without their flashlights.

Methodically, they checked room after room. Some were offices, others looked like labs. All of them were empty. Around every door, Chris half expected something to lunge out: a zombie, a Hunter, or one of those Bandersnatches from Rockfort. But no, each room was void of any life.

Upon opening another door, they found a large lab. The group fanned out to search for things. As Chris dug through a stack of papers on a desk, he heard Claire let out a small 'eep!'.

She was pointing her flashlight on a corpse sprawled face down behind a lab station. The rest of them joined her, illuminating the body with their lights. There was a hole in the corpse's lab coat, and the area around it was red. He had been shot.

"Jill," Chris said. She positioned herself over his shoulder and leveled the MP-5K at the body. The rest of the team got back. Chris slowly reached over to grab the body's shoulder. In the low light, Chris saw a flutter of movement and jumped back.

"Sorry! Sorry!" exclaimed Jill. "I stepped and slipped on his coat. Sorry!"

Chris flexed his fist.

"_Dammit Jill!_" he thought.

He flipped the body over. It's eyes stared eerily at the ceiling. Chris avoided them and immediately saw what he was looking for: the keycard still hung around his neck.

"Whoever shot this guy had their own access card," he said. "They left his." He felt the body. It was ice cold. "He's been here for a while, but maybe this happened after everyone left." He pulled the card off the chain. It might help unlock a few doors.

They moved on, moving more cautiously. Someone had shot that man. There was a chance they could still be here. They cleared room after room, not finding anything but lab notes and dust. The hallway ended. There was another elevator here. It didn't have a call button, but there was a card reader. Chris swiped the scientist's card. A positive beeped resounded down the hall, and the elevator opened. They piled in.

This one went down five more floors. The doors opened to a short hallway. This one was almost pitch black. So far underground, Chris had a nauseating feeling of being buried alive. He sneaked a peek at Claire's face to see how she was holding up. She looked fine, but Chris saw her eyes darting around rather fast. She was nervous.

At the end of the hall was a thick metal door. Chris and Barry pried it open with some difficulty. Upon entering the room, they all stopped, their flashlights' beams displaying the room's contents.

On either side of the room were a row of tanks. Built solidly of reinforced metal, they were filled with a viscous liquid. Coils of tubes were floating inside, hooked to hazy figures. Chris and the others shined their lights on one. There was a digital readout that displayed some information in bright red letters: MA-125R. Chris swallowed.

"_Hunters..._"

The figure in the tank floated closer to the thick glass, revealing it's reptilian body. Razor sharp claws an inch long tipped it's fingers and toes.

Chris looked back down the room. The tanks lined the entire room.

"Well shit," he swore.


	5. Chapter 5

"Well, this is a little more than we anticipated," said Rebecca, looking down the row of tanks. She looked up, and saw another level above them, with just as many.

"This is ridiculous," said Barry. "They have an entire army in this room alone! What if this isn't the only one?"

Chris stood there and fumed. He had had enough. These were the types of creatures that killed his teammates back in Raccoon City. Why was Umbrella creating this many? To sell across the world for terrorists? Would these things be killing women and children next?

"We're blowing this place to hell," he said through gritted teeth.

He felt Claire's hand on his shoulder. She could see how angry he had become in such a short time.

"Chris, please try to relax," she said. "Don't let your temper get the best of you. Let's think things through first."

Hearing Claire's voice helped a little, but he was still dangerously pissed off. He took a deep breath. This is what got him ejected from the Air Force.

"Alright, lets move on, and find the destruct system. If we can't, we need to pull out, and get the government to destroy this place."

That was easier said than done. Even though they were standing amidst an battalion of living weapons, they were here against the U.S Government's orders. Even if they got this place destroyed, they would probably go on trial.

They moved to the end of the long room, crossing past tank after tank of Hunters. At the end was another door. They were in another hallway. It was wider than the previous ones, no doubt to allow easy transportation of stasis containers to the storage room behind them. The S.T.A.R.S were moving closer to the bowels of the facility.

Through another door, the team emerged into a large lab. Empty, it bared resemblances to the smaller labs on the level above them. It also was filled more more advanced machinery and large tubes that Chris guessed were used to grow organisms. They were about to move on when Rebecca spied something sitting on a table.

"Wait. Some of these instruments were used recently," she said, to everyones surprise. She picked up a scalpel off of a tray and wiped it on the sheet of surgical cloth it sat on. Blood smeared off the blade. It was fresh. Looking about the table, several test tube racks had rows of glassware, filled with fresh chemicals and what looked like blood. Someone had conducted some research here recently.

Immediately, the whole team dropped into combat stances, and scanned the room carefully. It was empty. They fanned out, their flashlights panning the dim room for life behind tables, desks and cabinets. They found nothing.

"Whoever was here probably heard us talking and booked," whispered Chris. "From now on, no talking."

Chris's order for silence was negated when a loud rumble echoed over their heads. They could feel a faint vibration through the floor.

"What the hell was that?" Jill whispered.

Alarms blared out all of a sudden, startling the team. Flashing lights pulsed through the darkness as a female voice echoed throughout the dead hallways.

"_Security breach detected. Access corridors J through B will seal in 10 seconds._"

At the end of the lab, a large shutter began to lower. The team bolted for it as it lowered. They reached it halfway down. Rebecca ducked under it, followed by Barry and Claire, who slipped and slid on her butt underneath. It was about three quarters of the way down. Chris and Jill were the last ones through. Chris hit the door and waited for Jill.

"Chris, go!" she yelled as she approached it. Chris ducked under it. Jill dove headfirst towards the thinning gap. She slid under with an inch to spare, feeling the door clip the back of her boots as she did. The door slammed shut.

All of them breathed a sigh of relief. In the post adrenaline rush, Barry laughed.

"Hey Jill..."

She got up and waved her hand dismissively, "Yeah, Yeah. Jill sandwich. Shut up."

They were in another lab. The door sealed the one they were just in, but ahead of them, the way was clear.

Claire got back up and said, "In the event of an emergency, they must seal off the labs and storage areas. That way, no one can release the Hunters." She rubbed her sore butt.

The rest of them didn't hear her. They were looking into the lab. Bodies littered the floor, peppered with bullet holes. They all wore white lab coats. More were positioned around the doors to the lab. It looked like they were shot in the back.

Rebecca raised a hand over her mouth. "Oh God...What happened here?"

Chris already knew the answer.

"This was a secret lab. When they got wind of what was happening to the corporation, the Umbrella heads decided they were a liability." He and the rest of the S.T.A.R.S stepped gingerly in between the bodies scattered around them. "They knew what went on here, so Umbrella had them killed on the spot, so they couldn't turn against the company."

They looked over the corpses. It was cold inside the facility. Umbrella collapsed a few weeks ago, and the bodies were in a halted state of decomposition. Some of them showed missing skin and rotting flesh. No doubt at one point it was warmer inside the facility, judging by the way the bodies were dressed. The low temperature and lack of moisture put the corpses in a state of mummification before they could decompose completely. Their skin was shriveled over their bones.

"Sick..." Jill breathed.

They left the lab converted into a mass graveyard and moved on. Now they began to see more dried bodies of scientist's and workers along the halls. Through another door, and into another lab. This one only had a few bodies in it. There was a work station in the corner. Claire spotted a blueprint of the facility. They all leaned over it.

The alarm finally stopped blaring. A death like silence now filled the room.

"That's better," muttered Chris.

"I think we are right here," Claire said, pointing. "We just passed through the storage room, which is this big spot right here."

"It looks like we're not sealed in," Barry said. "It said corridors J through B. Right now, we're in K." He traced a course along the blueprint with his finger. "There's a second elevator to the surface at Q."

"Any idea where the self-destruct switch is?" Jill asked behind them. She was watching for movement.

Claire pointed to the map. "Here, probably in the central control station."

"Then that's our next stop," Chris decided.

Rebecca rolled up the blueprint and stuffed it in her backpack. They turned from the work station and went to leave the lab.

All of the sudden, the lights flickered on. Slowly, the team turned off their flashlights.

"Okay..." Jill said slowly, "Who did that?"

"There's someone else here." Chris said.

In some of the glassware strewn about the lab tables, Chris saw shifting light.

"Down!" he yelled as a volley of automatic gunfire rang out. He ducked and pushed over a metal table. Medical instruments and glassware fell off, shattering on the floor. Bullets rained down on the table like a drum. Claire landed next to him, covering her head.

Rebecca was closer to the gunfire, huddled behind the metal base of a growth tube. The glass shattered and rained down on her. The metal of the tube was just barley enough to cover her form. She buried her head in her arms as the glass showered her.

Jill was bladed behind a filling cabinet. She leaned out and fired a few rounds from her submachine gun before taking cover as a hail of bullets forced her back.

Barry had followed Chris's thinking and flipped a table over. He drew his magnum and held it against his chest.

"Umbrella?" he asked Barry over the gunfire.

Barry shook his head.

"I don't think so," he said grimly.


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter 6: Men in Black**

Smoke filled the hallway, and bits of rubble fell from the ceiling and walls of the jagged hole of what was left of the thick metal shutter. Four men, clad in black clothes and body armor, advanced into the room. It was filled with security monitors and computer servers. A harsh alarm rang out, followed by a woman's voice.

"_Security breach detected. Access corridors J through B will seal in 10 seconds_!"

Several doors began to lower down the hallway. The men ignored them and began to set up their own computers, plugging into the servers and monitors. The surface level elevator opened again and a fifth man stepped out. He peered into the darkness through black sunglasses.

Albert Wesker joined his subordinates through the hole.

"Report"

The soldier stood straight and respectfully addressed his superior. One eye focused on Wesker's sunglasses, the other was lost underneath the infrared scope harnessed to his head.

"Sir, as you can see, we have successfully accessed main security control. We are attempting to break into the network and establish control," he reported.

"Good. Reset the security system once you are in."

"Yes sir."

The elevator opened again, and a dozen more soldiers entered. They were all clones of each other. Short crew cuts, and cold eyes. Each had black gear and Kevlar on. An infrared scope hung over each of their right eyes. Clutched in their hands were HK UMP's, and strapped to their belts were handguns and grenades.

Wesker addressed them all.

"Sweeper teams, once the security is down, begin to clear the area. Confirm the intended target, and take her alive. Shoot everything else on sight."

A chorus of "Yes sir's" echoed.

The alarm turned off, and the shutters began to raise. The soldier spoke to Wesker again.

"Sir, we have successfully established a connection. Security has been reset."

"Get the power back on," Wesker said. He pulled a black PDA out of the slot on his belt and looked at the map of the facility displayed on the screen. The sweeper teams began to move out and disappeared into the darkness.

"_B.O.W storage is down another five levels,_" he thought, looking at the map. More soldiers piled out of the elevator. They were led by an officer with sleek black gelled hair.

"Major, take your men and secure the gene splicing labs on the lowest levels," he commanded. "Prepare for the extraction squad to remove the MA-125R's." The soldiers voiced their affirmation then quickly jogged down the hall.

Wesker let his team do their work. He figured it would be a while before the power was turned back on. He decided to check the door next to the blown out security shutter. He looked around the empty locker room. At first he saw nothing, but then his eyes caught the pile of coats and cold weather gear on the floor in one of the storage cages. He walked over and picked a parka up.

"_There's someone else here..." _he thought. "_I doubt they're here to collect B.O.W's._"

He pulled his radio out of his vest pocket and pushed the talk button. "All teams, there are unknown personnel in this facility. Eliminate them."

There had to be no witnesses. He tossed the jacket back on the pile and joined the men in the security center.

The soldier turned from the computer he was using.

"We are unable to re-establish power from here, sir," he stated. "We'll have to reset the main breaker two levels down."

"Do it."

The soldier left through a door on the opposite side of the blown out shutter.

About twenty minutes later, the lights flickered, then clicked on. More monitors and machines switched on in the security room. Wesker leaned over the shoulder of one of the soldiers sitting at one of the stations.

"Bring up the security cameras for the B.O.W storage."

The soldier began to punch in commands on his laptop, fumbling every now and then. It made him nervous that his commander was this close to him and addressing him directly. He had heard the rumors...

One of the monitors flashed, revealing rows of stasis tanks. The monitor cycled every few seconds, showing different rooms, just as full. Wesker smiled.

"Excellent. Any sightings of the good doctor?"

"No sir, nothing yet." the soldier replied nervously.

"Keep looking."

Wesker's radio crackled. The majors disembodied voice was hushed.

"Sir, we have contacts on the lower levels, past access corridor J. Five of them. We're moving in to attack."

"Roger,"

He smiled again. This was going to be easy.


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter 7: Shootouts and Standoffs**

There was a clatter of metal as spent magazines were ejected from guns. A series of clicks sounded as fresh ones were inserted and chambers were closed.

Chris didn't dare to stick his head above the table. As much as he wanted to get a grasp of the situation, he knew there would be hot lead waiting for him if he did. Right now, his only concern was to try and get Rebecca in a better position. If the gunner's advanced, she would be exposed, and undoubtedly gunned down. He mimed a few hand signals to Barry and Jill: an open palm brushing over his head, then a fist pointing through the table, and finally tapping his jaw. A loose translation: _Covering fire in the direction of attackers, vocal distraction._

"Identify yourselves," he yelled over the table. His request was met with silence.

"_Not very chatty, are they?_" he thought.

"You work for Umbrella?" he asked. Again, silence.

"Screw it."

He popped up and fired a round from his shotgun. Jill sprayed a volley with her MP-5K, and Barry's magnum filled in the gap with thunderous claps. Chris saw the shooters duck under cover. Some were crouched behind desks and cabinets like they were. More were crouched in the hall behind them. He saw a glimpse of the high end equipment they were using and the gear they wore.

As the rounds sang over her head, Rebecca dove and crawled underneath a metal desk. It covered her much better than the metal base of the growth tube did. The attackers returned fire, their bullets ricocheting around the room. Chris pumped another round into his shotgun and fired before ducking again.

"'Becca, you good?" he called. Her voice replied a little shaken.

"Yeah."

Chris heard muffled footsteps. The shooters were advancing and moving around them, trying to flank them in the room. He picked up a piece of glass and stuck it around the edge of the table. He saw a flash of movement in the transparent reflection. He dropped the glass and poked his gun around the edge of the table and fired. The shot hit the man dead on. The close range power of the shotgun knocked him back off of his feet.

They fired again. Bullets bounced around the table. Jill dove out from behind the cabinet and drained her clip. She dropped one soldier as she landed, and scrambled to find more cover as they fired at her. Glassware popped across tables as she crawled underneath them, ignoring the shards cutting at her skin.

Barry's magnum sang out and pierced the armor of another soldier trying to flank Rebecca. He fell over firing his gun as he died. Rebecca leaned out and fired at the cluster of soldiers that tried to advance through the door.

A metal object bounced around the table that Claire and Chris were ducked behind. A grenade! Chris quickly snatched it up and tossed it over the table, grabbing Claire and throwing her to the ground, then piling on top of her. The concussion in the room was deafening. Part of the table folded, and bits of metal showered onto the siblings.

Chris coughed. "Claire, go! I'll cover you!" He let Claire up and fired his shotgun over what was left of the table. Claire scurried away, crouched low under whizzing bullets and hopped over a counter. She pulled the grenade launcher off of her shoulder and loaded a 40 millimeter shell into the breech.

The soldiers stuck at the door were laying down fire, giving those in the room a chance to try and flank the team. Claire flipped up the sights on the launcher and lined up the door.

"Guys, get down!" she yelled. They all ducked and she fired. The explosive round struck the door frame and rocked the room. The door and part of the wall blew out and she saw three soldiers disappear into the wreckage.

Jill slapped another magazine into her MP-5K and squeezed off a few bursts at the remaining soldiers. They had grouped together on the far side of the room. One popped out of cover with a grenade in his hand. He caught a few bullets in the chest from Rebecca's handgun. His armor held and he began to toss the grenade. One of Barry's .357 rounds blew through his head, splattering the wall behind him in gray matter. His motion stopped, but inertia carried the grenade a ways, and it rolled and exploded, causing both sides to duck as another explosion rocked the room.

Claire had ducked behind the counter from the explosion. The grenade had landed close to her corner of the room. She heard a loud ringing in her ears, and her vision was swimming. As she tried to regain focus, someone grabbed her from behind. As she was wrenched from behind the counter, she saw the two remaining soldiers get peppered from Jill's submachine gun. She saw Chris drop his shotgun and draw his sidearm with unnatural speed and point it directly at her. The rest of them followed suite and turned their guns on her

All this happened in less than a few seconds, and Claire was still hazy from the grenade concussion.

"_Why are they aiming at me?_" her mind slurred. She groaned and all at once, she was herself, and she was aware of the arm around her throat and the cold metal pressed against her head.

The last soldier, a man with black hair and a cut on his forehead, had grabbed Claire in the confusion after the grenade explosion. He had his sidearm jammed against her temple, and he was hiding his body and head behind hers. Claire could feel his nose digging into the back of her head.

The rest of the S.T.A.R.S had taken aim at the soldier and Claire. A standoff. None of them could clearly see his body without Claire's getting in the way. He spoke, his voice shaking with anger and stress.

"Drop your guns." Chris ignored his request and stated his own.

"Let her go, right now." They were in all spaced out in a line in front of him, from left to right stood Rebecca, Barry, Chris and Jill. The soldier was staring down the barrels of four different guns. He slowly backed away, half dragging Claire with him.

"I'm not fucking around," he hissed. "I will blow her head off."

"And in turn, you get torn to shreds," said Jill. "I don't think you're that stupid."

Chris however, was acting strangely. The S.T.A.R.S would have thought his temper would have flared, but it didn't. Instead, he was taking slow deep breaths. His eyes half closed slowly, then his left one closed completely. His right eye stared down the notches of his gun sights. The soldiers head was half hidden by Claire's head, but she was straining away from the tip of his gun.

"_Just a little further, Claire._" His arms were cocked straight out, slightly bent at the elbows. They were as still as rock. He saw Claire's face. She looked calm, but her lower lip was quivering, a unique sign of hers when she was frightened. His vision blurred her face, and he only focused on the half of the soldiers head behind hers. That was all that mattered. His finger tightened on the trigger of his Beretta, but not all the way.

"_Just need to get the gun away from her head._" He took a long step forward, and the man stuck his gun out at Chris.

"Stay the fuck back!" he screamed. Chris took his chance and applied the last hundredth of a pound of pressure on the trigger. The gun fired, ejecting the empty casing at a high angle. The bullet sailed down a few inches above the man's outstretched arm. It sliced a few stray strands of Claire's long hair as it swept by her head and entered through his right eye. The back of his head exploded, and he crumpled to the ground. Claire stood there, frozen.

The team jumped at the gunshot, almost firing themselves.

"Chris are you fucking insane?" Jill yelled. Chris ignored her and immediately walked to Claire. He dropped his gun and hugged her, cradling her head in his hand. She was still in shock at what just happened, and she didn't return the hug. He buried his head in her neck and closed his eyes. A tear squeezed out from one of them.

"I am so...so...sorry Claire," he whispered, shuddering. "Please forgive me."

Her arms slowly circled him. She herself was crying.

"It's okay..." she breathed.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter 8: New Faces**

Chris wiped his eye and broke away from Claire. He still felt horrible at what he did, but it was the only option. The soldier would have shot her, no doubt about it. He couldn't live with himself if he had let him. He sniffed and addressed the others.

"See if you can scrounge any ammo from them," he said. "We need to get moving, in case more show up." The rest of them nodded. None of them pressed what happened further. The each selected a corpse and checked out the spare magazines they held.

"No use, they're using .45" Jill called.

"Same here," echoed Barry. Rebecca confirmed the same. They all decided to stick with their own weapons. They were more familiar with them, and they still had enough ammo. Chris helped himself to a few grenades clipped at the belt of one.

"So, who do you think these guys are?" Barry asked. "Jill, do you think they are U.B.C.S?" She shook her head.

"No, these guys are unmarked." She pointed to the back of one of the dead soldiers. "The Umbrella Biohazard Countermeasure Service logo was planted on each one of them. And besides, why would they send a U.B.C.S group here?"

"Maybe they're trying to do the same thing we are: blow this place up," said Rebecca. "Less evidence against Umbrella."

"But the company is already screwed. Who cares what the government finds now?" said Claire.

"Well, at any rate, they tried to kill us on the spot," said Barry, "Which means it's us or them." Chris agreed.

"Barry's right. Even if they have the same objective, we have to consider them an enemy. Let's get going."

They moved on through the door that Claire had blown out with the grenade launcher. Looking at the map, Rebecca confirmed that they were heading to the facility's central control station. Now that the power was on, they moved faster. They could see clearly, but still, they moved carefully. More of those soldiers could be around.

Walking through yet another lab, they came to the guards' barracks. Beds stacked in bunks stretched along in narrow columns. Here, Rebecca noticed the scratches along Jill's arms from when she crawled along the glass covered floor during the firefight.

"Jill, you're bleeding!" she exclaimed. Jill looked quizzically at her arm and shrugged.

"Feels fine," she she said, but Rebecca had already unslung her backpack. Jill rolled her eyes. "Please, Rebecca, don't. I told you I'm fine." Rebecca wasn't listening.

"Sit down," she ordered. Jill sighed and sat down on a bunk and did as she was told. Rebecca pulled out a small flashlight from her kit, and shined it on her arms. She felt around with her hands and with a small tweezers, began to pull out some shards of glass. During this impromptu check up, the rest of the team took the opportunity to rest and reload their weapons.

Rebecca pulled out a small can of First Aid Spray after she had finished removing the glass in Jill's arm.

"Deep breath," she said, and began to spray it on Jill's forearms. Jill remained expressionless, although her eyebrow twitched. Claire winced when she saw her reaction. She was never able to take a spritz of that stuff and stay silent. After applying bandages to some of the larger cuts, she packed up her gear.

"All finished," she announced.

"What, no sucker?" Jill muttered.

"What was that?" Rebecca asked absentmindedly.

"Nothing."

They got up and prepared to leave when a shot rang out. It splintered the headboard next to Barry's head. Ducking low, he drew his Colt Python and returned fire. He briefly saw a short figure in a white lab coat as the bullet ripped through another bunk. The figure yelped and took off. Chris dove and leaped across a few beds and flanked the attacker. Jill was right behind him. Barry and Claire gave chase behind the shooter.

Chris sprang out of the last row of bunks just as the figure rounded the corner to make a break for the door. It was a young woman. She pointed a handgun at Chris and fired. He dodged the shot. It wasn't even close. He shot at her and she disappeared through another door. Jill popped out of the bunk next to Chris just as Barry and Claire ran through the door. They followed them with Rebecca tailing behind.

Through a few halls, Barry and Claire burst through a door and came face to face with the woman. She was standing by a bunch of controls and monitors. She had led them straight to central control. Her gun was outstretched in her hand, shaking. Barry and Claire drew on her as Chris, Jill, and Rebecca entered.

"Stay back!" she shouted, "You're not taking me!"

"Easy..." Chris warned. "Take it easy." "_Hard to do with five guns pointed at you,_" he thought afterwards. "Put the gun down."

The woman shook her head. Her long blond hair was drawn into a ponytail, and it shook with her head. Her eyes darted nervously through wire rimmed glasses.

"No." The gun rattled in her hand. Chris was afraid it would go off, and they would end up shooting each other.

He lowered his gun slowly, and motioned for the others to do the same.

"Alright, take it easy," Chris repeated, hoping this would calm the distressed scientist. "We're not here to hurt anyone. What's your name?"

Slowly, the shaking of her hand stopped, and the gun went still. Seeing that the S.T.A.R.S had lowered their weapons, she slowly followed suite.

"My name? I'm Emily Bale. Uh, Dr. Emily Bale," she stated nervously. "Who are you guys?"

"My name is Chris," Chris replied. "This is Barry, Jill, Rebecca, and Claire. You're an Umbrella researcher?" She nodded.

"What are you doing down here?" he asked her. Dr. Bale's hand flexed on the gun.

"Umbrella," she spat. "They massacred everyone here. 'The company was in danger' they told us. All the guards began shooting. I was in auxiliary storage and I heard gunfire, so I hid, and they missed me. I've been down here trying to perfect the MA-125 programming ever since."

"You mean," Jill began, "You've been trying to find a way to control the Hunters?" She nodded again.

"Yes. When I do, I'll unleash them on the corporate fucks who did this to my colleagues."

This entire situation reminded Claire of Annette Birkin. They met in the underground Raccoon Lab. She was paranoid as hell after Umbrella killed her husband, William Birkin, who developed the G-virus.

"Listen, Dr. Bale," Chris said. "Umbrella is finished. The company hit financial rock bottom a few weeks ago." She bared her teeth at him.

"You don't think I don't know that? I don't care! They will still pay." Her eyes narrowed. She looked at Jill's beret and spotted the S.T.A.R.S emblem. Her gun snapped up again. "You're those S.T.A.R.S members that were responsible."

Up went the teams guns again. Back to square one.

"I know why you're here...You came to destroy this place, and me and the Hunters along with it!" Her gun was starting to shake again. Chris didn't like where this was going.

"_She's ready to snap,_" he realized. Now while Dr. Bale had her gun pointed at them, her other hand crept to a laptop plugged into a computer. She begin to slowly type in commands, every so often, her eyes would dart over to check her work.

"Dr., what are you doing?" Rebecca asked. Dr. Bale smiled coldly.

"I'm probably finished anyway. That rival organization is here. No doubt they want to force me to work for them. But I'm not going to go without a fight." She continued typing. "I hope my Hunters rend all of your flesh."

At this news, the entire team stiffened. She was going to release the Hunters from stasis. Rebecca slowly walked forward, she was the most non-threatening of the group. Her empty hands raised in front of her, she tried to speak in a soothing voice to the deranged scientist.

"Please Dr., don't do this. What if they get out and hurt the public? I don't think you're the type of person to hurt innocent lives."

Dr. Bale's gun pointed directly at Rebecca's face.

"Stay back, you little bitch!" she screamed. Rebecca jumped and slowly backed away. The doctors mind was set. Her finger hovered over the enter key for a bit, then pressed it down. The computer beeped.

Chris knew that their chances of survival just decreased to a few tenths above zero.


	9. Chapter 9

**Chapter 9: Hunters in the Dark**

Captain Jacobs was the officer leading the extraction team. The sweeper teams had cleared this area, and now his team moved in to begin the preparation to move Hunter stasis units out of the facility. They would haul each one through the labs where they were grown, to the heavy turntable elevator. Once they got the lifting gear to move the tanks, Jacobs figured it would take about 24 hours to clean the storage room out. There were a lot of tanks.

His men were darting up and down the rows of sleeping Hunters, plugging in computers to monitor vitals and conditions. They were almost done with their preliminary tests. In about ten minutes, he would call up Wesker and request heavy lifting. One of his subordinates called him to the end of the row of tanks.

"Captain, we've finished our tests. All MA-125R's are in perfect stasis and ready for transportation," he reported.

"Nice," Jacobs responded. "The faster we get done, the faster we get out of this meat locker."

He pressed his radio and was about to speak when a rapid set of beeps emitted from the computer tablet that Jacob's subordinate was carrying.

"What's that?"

The soldier scanned the tablet.

"Strange, the first set of safety locks have been released," he said slowly. There was another volley of beeps. His eyes widened. "Now the second one's are down." A third set of beeps sounded, and a resonating alarm rang through the hall. The soldier's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open.

"Sir, all three locks are out! Half the tanks are beginning to undergo reanimation!" he shouted.

"Shit! All units, weapons hot! Get out of here!" Jacobs commanded. Every other door to the tanks in the room slid open, and the thick stasis fluid spilled into the walkways. Long, clawed reptilian arms reached out hazily. The extraction team ran, heading for the doors of the storage room.

Before they made it, Hunters leaped out of the tanks and landed on the walkway. They screamed and began to rush the soldiers. The raised their weapons and opened fire. The automatic guns cut down several of the B.O.W's, but just as many weaved around the gunfire, climbing up and over the tanks. They leaped and descended upon the soldiers. Their razor sharp claws cut easily through their armor. Blood splattered across the tanks and floor as the extraction team was shredded in their claws.

Jacobs and a few of his soldiers turned and ran around the tanks, then up the stairs to the second floor catwalk that surrounded the room. A few Hunters jumped up to meet them. Jacobs and his men shouldered their HK-UMP's. They fired, and their rounds killed the attacking B.O.W's. The Hunters screamed shrilly as they died. Upon hearing the commotion, more began to bound for them, climbing up the tanks and metal supports. As they ran, Jacobs screamed into his radio.

"Commander! The Hunters have been unleashed. Most of my team is dead, and we're falling ba-"

Jacobs cut his transmission short and shot another hunter that dropped from the level above. One reached through the catwalk railings and slashed at a subordinate's leg. He fell, and the Hunter grabbed him, pulling him off the catwalk and into a fray of more Hunters. His screams followed Jacobs as he ran up another flight. His men behind him shot three more as more Hunters charged after them. They were overrun and killed. One Hunter swiped one of their heads off cleanly, leaving a spurting torso.

Jacobs could see the thick door that lead out of this place from the third floor. A Hunter dropped in front of him. He felled it with the last of his clip. Running over it, he wrenched open the door. As he did, he heard one land behind him.

Before he could escape, the Hunter ran his claw through Jacobs' chest. He groaned and looked down. As his vision whited out, he saw the razor sharp claws piercing outward through his chest, interwoven with bits of his ribcage, and red with blood and gore. The Hunter pulled him off the balcony.


	10. Chapter 10

**Chapter 10: Complications**

At first, Wesker had been surprised. Then, he was overjoyed when he saw the S.T.A.R.S in the facility over the security camera. True, they were a credible threat to his company, but nothing else mattered when he saw a chance for revenge at Chris.

"_Not too shabby, Chris,_" he thought as he saw the aftermath of the gun battle between his men and the S.T.A.R.S. "_Even though I'm a little disappointed in my troops, I'm glad I have the chance to personally dispose of you myself._"

"Track their progress," he told the soldier at the controls of the cameras. "Make sure they don't interfere with any of our plans." He pressed his radio. "All teams, the unknown personnel have been identified: They are the remainder of the Raccoon City Special Tactics and Rescue Squad. You have all been briefed on them. Valentine, Burton, and Chambers are all cleared to kill on site. Redfield is to remain untouched. Capture him alive." He thought for a second. "His sister as well."

Wesker watched as the S.T.A.R.S checked the bodies of his men, then move on. The soldier flipped to the next monitor, stalking their movements without them knowing. The facility's eyes watched them the entire way. They entered the guards quarters, but there were no cameras inside of it.

"Bring up all three entrances to the guards quarters," he ordered. The soldier typed a few commands, and three separate monitors showed the entrances to the room. Just outside the third entrance, Wesker saw their primary objective sneaking into the room.

"Teams, Dr. Bale has been located outside the guards quarters on the lowest level," he said into his radio. He watched as she disappeared into the room. A few minutes later, Dr. Bale ran out through the door, and Wesker saw a bullet hole explode through the door frame. He frowned.

"_They better not compromise our subject,_" he thought. Dr. Bale was the reason they were here. The Hunters were just icing on the cake. Wesker saw Barry and Claire follow Dr. Bale as she ran. Chris, Jill and Rebecca followed. The soldier continued to track the chase through the facility. They stopped in central control.

Wesker couldn't hear the dialogue they exchanged, but they managed to avoid shooting each other. After a while, and Bale raised her gun again. She began to use a computer.

"_I sincerely hope that's not the self destruct,_" Wesker thought. This facility had too much in it to simply blow it up. He wasn't sure that Bale had clearance to activate it, but she had been down here for a while, and a genius like her wouldn't take long to figure it out. After Dr. Bale finished, she ran through the other door in the control room. The S.T.A.R.S didn't follow.

"Follow them both," he told the soldier. The soldier began to track Dr. Bale on one monitor, then the S.T.A.R.S on another. Wesker's radio crackled and he heard a panicked voice. It was one of the extraction team members. Wesker couldn't remember his name; it was Jacobs, or Michaels, or some other first name.

"_Commander! The Hunters have been unleashed. Most of my team is dead, and we're falling ba-_" The rest of it cut out.

"Bring up the storage room, now!" Wesker barked. The soldier nervously worked at his computer, but was unsuccessful.

"I'm sorry sir, but the facility doesn't have cameras in that sector," he said and winced, expecting repercussion. Wesker bared his teeth. On a blank screen, the soldier saw his and Wesker's, reflection. He could have sworn he saw a red glow come from Wesker's sunglasses.

Wesker calmed himself.

"_Irrelevant. Hunter extraction was secondary,_" he told himself. "_Acquire Dr. Bale first, then send in a strike team to clear this place of B.O.W's,_" He pressed his radio. "We have a situation. B.O.W's have been released in the facility. Capture Bale immediately."

Wesker looked back at the monitors that showed the S.T.A.R.S. They hadn't left the control room yet. They were tinkering with the facility's computers, no doubt trying to find the self-destruct system. Wesker knew that they couldn't activate it. It required one of three keys. The facility administrator, who had left when Umbrella ordered the scientists executed, had one. The captain of the guard, who left with him, had the second. Dr. Bale, as the lead researcher, had the third, and she would soon be in his grasp.

On the monitor, Wesker saw the S.T.A.R.S take off through the door that Dr. Bale had escaped through. No doubt they had figured it out, but they would be too late. Looking at the map on his PDA, then at the monitor tracking Bale, he saw that she was running straight into a sweeper team. The S.T.A.R.S were too far behind to catch up before they caught her.

Sure enough, Dr. Bale ran straight into the team in a small lab. On the monitor, Wesker saw her shoot at the team. She obviously had no firearm training, as her shots were wild. The sweeper team methodically placed themselves in cover. One soldier loaded a ring airfoil grenade into a launcher. When there was a break in the gunfire, he fired it at Dr. Bale. Wesker couldn't hear any of the combat, but he saw the rubber ring strike her in the chest, blowing her off of her feet. The team quickly moved in and subdued her.

Wesker smirked as he saw her thrashing about. He wished he could be there, but he was under orders to only command. His grin faded when he saw the S.T.A.R.S, coming faster than he anticipated. They were going to come in on the sweeper team.

"_Hurry up, dammit,_" he thought. The sweepers were having a hard time getting Dr. Bale under control. She was fighting wildly, tooth and nail. Something drew their attention. He saw one of the soldiers jerk, and several sprays of blood jetted from his body. The rest of the sweepers began firing, their guns emitting silent yellow flashes on the monitor.

The S.T.A.R.S had caught up.


	11. Chapter 11

**Chapter 11: Darkness Settles**

Dr. Bale turned and ran through a door.

"Hey!" Jill barked after her.

"Forget it Jill," said Chris. "We need to hit the self-destruct and get the hell out of here!"

Rebecca was already at the computer. She quickly browsed through program after program. The computer network was huge. It was going to be awhile before she found it. Chris let her get to work, he had other things on his mind.

Aside from the fact that they now had a huge group of killing machines running loose in the building, he was thinking of what Dr. Bale had said.

"_That rival organization is here..._" she had said. Who was the only other corporation that rivaled Umbrella? There was none. Except...

"Wesker...He's here," Chris said. Alarmed, all of them looked at Chris.

"How do you know?" asked Claire. As soon as she heard Wesker's name, she got worried. Not about the team as a whole, but Chris. This was deeply personal for him. She hoped it wouldn't affect how he acted. He might loose it knowing that the man who killed his teammates was in the same vicinity as him.

"Think about it. Why would anyone come to this place? You saw those soldiers. Top of the line gear, and unmarked. They weren't Umbrella, and civilians don't know about this place. It has to be the organization that Wesker works for. They're after Umbrella's experiments."

Jill and Barry didn't have anything to say. They hadn't seen Wesker since the mansion incident. All they knew about him was what Chris told them about their encounter at Rockfort and the Antarctic. Rebecca suddenly broke their attention from their former leader.

"Guys, I found the program! Shit," she swore. "It needs a passcard."

"What about the one we took from the dead scientist?" Claire asked. Rebecca shook her head.

"It doesn't have high enough clearance. It says to enter one of three keys." She snapped her fingers, thinking. "Bale! She has to have it. They would only give it to high profile people. She said she was working on controlling B.O.W's, right? That sounds like a pretty high priority, so maybe she's a lead researcher here."

"Okay, let's go," said Chris. "Before those Hunters have a chance to get too far."

They booked through the door, following Dr. Bale. Running down the access corridor, they stopped only the briefest amount of time to look in side rooms for her. Most were just closets and storage rooms, and were empty. Their boots thundered down the metal floor as they tried to bridge the gap between them and their target. Chris tried to keep an eye on the large vents running along the ceiling of the halls. Back in Rockfort, Hunters had traversed the base through the air ducts. He didn't want one to drop down in between them, especially with his sister among them.

A few gunshots sang out down the corridor. It sounded like small arms fire. Chris and Jill blew threw the next door first. They spotted Dr. Bale in the middle of the room. She was being wrestled to the ground by a pack of five soldiers, wearing the same uniform and gear as the ones they had saw earlier.

The soldiers that weren't subduing Dr. Bale turned and raised their submachine guns. Jill fired first, dropping one of them with her own submachine gun. The second one was quicker, and fired a volley which sent them all ducking for cover behind workstations. Barry and Rebecca shot back before ducking. Bullets fragmented as they collided with metal around the room. Chris pointed his shotgun and fired, the buckshot ripping a tabletop apart. He saw two soldiers dragging Dr. Bale along the floor by the scruff of her lab coat and shirt. She pulled at their arms, screaming.

Claire took aim with her pistol and clipped one of the soldiers dragging the thrashing scientist. His armor absorbed the shot. Stumbling, he clumsily returned fire with one hand, his gun slung over his shoulder by it's carrying strap. In his haste, he let go of Dr. Bale. She managed to break free of the second soldier by tripping him. As she got up, she tried to run, but a stray bullet clipped her shoulder. She screamed in pain, and fell. As she did, her lanyard holding her access card caught on the edge of a lab table and snapped.

The two soldiers grabbed her again and pulled her out of the room. The two laying down covering fire remained. One was on the far side of the room, and the other was in the center.

"Kill the lights," one yelled. As Chris shoved the scarlet rounds into his shotgun, his back against a workstation, he heard gunshots and shattering glass. The room darkened, only illuminating briefly with gunfire. There was a pause. He heard Barry breathing heavily next to him. Somewhere to his left, he heard what he guessed was Rebecca loading a clip into her gun.

He flipped the tac light on his shotgun and popped up. Pointing it at where he last saw the closest soldier, he fired. There was nothing there, and the shell peppered the table there with dozens of tiny wholes. Automatic gunfire lit up the room, and he dove to the side, under new cover. He saw the soldier. He had a scope over his eye.

"_Tactical advantage,_" thought Chris grimly. The soldiers could see in the dark and they couldn't. When the soldier fired, Jill spotted his figure and fired, but he was too fast. He disappeared into the darkness again. Any minute, they would get hit, and they couldn't see from where.

During the exchange of gunfire, Chris saw his sister army crawling along the floor to the corner of the room. She had the grenade launcher in her hands. She sat up and fired into the darkness. The room lit up briefly as the grenade exploded. The dark room wavered as the explosion rang against the metal.

Like a psychic link had come between them, Chris figured out why Claire fired into the dark.

"_They're closer to the explosion than we are!_"

He popped up, and swept his gun across the room. It's light fell on one of the soldiers. He was reeling from the explosion with his arms over his head. Chris blew him away with his shotgun. The other was a lot closer to the explosion. In the light of the flashlight that Rebecca had just turned on him, they saw that he was holding the un-scoped side of his face with blood seeping down it. He fired one handed, his gun jumping uncontrollably.

The shots landed near Chris, one grazing his bicep. Claire tackled him, and they slipped on the floor, sliding into a nearby corridor, away from the gunfire. The last soldier was brought down by Rebecca and Barry. An unsteady silence filled the room after he died.

Claire lay next to her brother. She hit her head when she fell, and she blinked, trying to shake the stars from her eyes. Chris was propping himself up on his hands and knees. Blood was running down his arm and pooling next to him. He raised himself into a kneeling position and hissed as pain shot up his harm.

A metal rattle filled the air. A shutter was sliding down in the corridor where they lay. It sped down it's track, heading straight for Chris, who was in the doorway of the corridor. Instinctively, Claire drew her leg to her chest and kicked Chris. He boot caught him straight in the chest. He grunted as she kicked him out of the way of the shutter. It slid shut and sealed.

As Chris recovered from the kick, Barry, Jill and Rebecca tried to pry open the door. The door release wasn't working, and it was too heavy to lift or break away. Chris got up unsteadily. He saw the door they were trying to open.

"Don't tell me..." he began. They nodded.

"Claire!" he yelled through it, and listened. They heard nothing.

"_It must be soundproof_," he thought. He winced as he felt both his arm and chest. Even through his armor, it was sore. He knew why she kicked him, but still, he blamed himself. If he hadn't been so careless in the battle, she wouldn't have had to save him. Now she was trapped and they had no way of freeing her. Unless...

"The grenade launcher!" Chris said. "We can blow it down." Barry shook his head and pointed down. In the light of their flashlights, He saw the stock and breech of the grenade launcher; it was pinned underneath the door, and the metal had crimped. Chris just hope her foot or arm wasn't under there, too. The whole thing happened so fast!

"Well, if she's smart, she'll go straight for the elevator to the surface and wait for us." Barry said. "We won't be long. Look." He shined his flashlight on Dr. Bale's key card. "We hit the self destruct and book it."

Reluctantly, Chris agreed. He hope she would be alright. With the Hunter's released, and professional soldiers attacking them, her odds couldn't be worse.


	12. Chapter 12

**Chapter 12: Separated**

Claire breathed a sigh of relief as the door shut. It had just barely missed Chris. She hoped she didn't kick him too hard. It was going to be tough to get out of this place alive, and they didn't need Chris to be incapacitated because of a broken rib that she herself broke. She looked at the base of the door that had shut, and groaned. Her poor grenade launcher had been crushed. She was staring at the muzzle of it, which was bent upward at an angle. The door had pinched it shut, and now it was wedged underneath the door.

"_Well, so much for that,_" she thought. "_I just wish I would have had more time to use the last three rounds on those thugs that shot Chris._"

Claire got to her feet. She was fine, but a little sore from the dive into the corridor. The hallway was dim from missing lights the soldiers had shot out. Thankfully, it brightened up a ways down.

"Hey guys!" she called through the door. There was no response. She banged her fist against the door, but didn't even hear an echo. The door was solid metal, and heavy enough to smash a weapon in half. She doubted they could hear them. The way ahead of her blocked, Claire considered her other options. Unfortunately, she had little clue to where she was. Rebecca had the map, and Claire had glanced through it only briefly.

"_I think this passage eventually leads to the surface elevator,_" she thought. "_The facility wouldn't bottleneck an escape route into one passage, so there must be a way to circle around this door and find the others. I just hope that more of these haven't shut._"

Claire thought about what Chris would do. Of course, he would go to find his friends, or he would go straight for Wesker, if he was indeed here. Claire prayed he wasn't really that stupid. Knowing Chris, he would want her to go straight for the exit, so she would be safe while he went off and played hero. She shook her head.

"_No. I'm going to meet back up with them. I'm a part of the team now just as much as the rest of them._"

She picked up her gun where it had fallen and checked the clip. She remembered firing about three shots. That means she had about eleven shots in her current magazine, plus the two spares under her other arm in the holster, which held fifteen apiece. That was a total of forty-six shots. She slid the magazine back in the gun, and took off down the hall.

Jogging lightly, she began to search for another hallway. All of the rooms she passed were storage rooms and offices. The hallway led her to another large room, lined with tables. She had found the cafeteria. Two doors were on either side of the room, so Claire picked the right one.

As she jogged across the empty room, she heard a faint banging sound. It was coming from the vents. She stopped and listened. It was getting steadily louder, and more intense. It sounded like dozens of hands were slapping the metal of it. As it grew even louder, she saw the air ducts in the room begin to bulge and shake. Something was coming through them.

"_Hunters!_" she thought, panicked.

She ducked rolled underneath a table. With only a handgun, she would be no match for as many as it sounded. There was a crash as a grate fell to the floor. Underneath the fold out tables, Claire saw half a dozen scaly, clawed feet hit the floor a few feet next to her. There was more banging in the air duct, but it soon faded. The rest of the Hunters were moving elsewhere.

All alone, Claire could hardly still her wildly beating heart. She tried to breathe through her mouth. To her ears, the intake of air through her nose was noisy. Her breaths came out fluttering. Claire saw the feet and muscular legs of the Hunters begin to move. They were spreading out through the room. Their claws clicked noisily on the floor as they crept around the table she was hidden under.

Slowly, Claire began to carefully crawl underneath the row of tables she was under. She had to get out of this room as fast as possible, and away from these monsters. Slowly army crawling, she tried not to look at the feet stalking around her. A sudden crash made her jump and release a small squeak of fear. She clasped a hand over her mouth. One of the Hunters had clawed over a trash can. It made a clicking sound as it moved on, uninterested with it's contents. She resumed her steady movement.

"_Just don't look under the tables_," she pleaded. She didn't know how smart they were. They could just be stupid animals, acting on instinct. This thought didn't make Claire feel any better. Perhaps they sensed her in here, and were trying to sniff her out?

She reached the end of the line of tables. Another crash turned her blood to ice. One of the tables she previously been under had been knocked over. Claire saw the massive gouges in the metal that the Hunter made. Now it was curiously examining it, emitting a low set of clicks that sounded like a purr.

"_I need a distraction,_" she thought. "_I can't make it to the door unless they're busy._"

Claire didn't have to wait long, because one of the Hunters got a little territorial with one of its hatchlings. It took a swipe at one. The second Hunter responded with a high pitched shriek. Both of them crouched low, baring their fangs and claws, preparing to pounce. The other Hunters were circling around them, seeming to anticipate a fight.

Quiet as a shadow, Claire scuttled to the open door and slipped through, then shut it partway, covering her escape. She heard another shriek in the room, and the sound of a scuffle, followed by more shrieking and several wet sounds. She quietly jogged down the hall, putting the Hunters behind her.

When she was out of earshot of the screams in another room, she breathed a sigh of relief.

"_That was close,_" she thought. She was in a room she recognized from the map. It was another storage room. Thankfully, this one didn't house Hunters. In fact, it was mostly empty. Only a few freight containers were stacked on the second level, and a few smaller containers were scattered on the main floor. Most of the lights were off; shadows were everywhere in the room. Her gun out in front of her, Claire proceeded across the room. She walked around the edge of the crates, rather than going through them. It was a bad spot for an ambush.

As she circled around them, she heard a faint hollow sound metal in a dark corner of the room. It sounded a bit like a pipe falling. Whirling, she took aim. She couldn't see anything, and heard nothing else.

"_Maybe it's rats,_" she hoped. She swallowed hard and shook off the fear that had come over her.

As Claire took a step forward, she heard only the faintest noise; it was the sound of moving air directly behind her. She turned and pointed her gun, but something caught her arms, and they stopped in mid swing. Her gun went off, echoing loudly. Her heart jumped into her throat as she saw who was holding her.

"Lovely to see you again, Claire."

It was Albert Wesker. Claire tried to wrench her gun arm from his grasp. He was holding her lazily with his right hand. His black gloved hand may as well have been a vice on her arm. Even after mustering all her strength, his arm moved about and inch. Claire released her grip on the gun, and caught it with her free left hand. She stuck the gun in his ribs and pulled the trigger. There was a blur of movement, and as Claire's finger tightened on the trigger, he had moved to her other side, with his grip on her left arm. The gun fired and the bullet struck a stack of metal crates.

"_What?_" Claire thought dumbly. She didn't even see him move! Before she could try the move again, Wesker gave her arm a tug, forcing her to stumble forward. He pulled her in a wide circle around himself. Her finger involuntarily tightened on the trigger again and the gun fired again.

"My my...what an interesting move," he drolled. "You certainly do have some tricks up your sleeve." With her right hand, Claire threw a punch across her arm at his face. Wesker disappeared again and apparated on her right sided. His hand now encircled both of her arms. His thumb, index and middle finger were latched onto her right forearm, and his ring finger and pinky were hooked around her left wrist. Despite the fact that he held her with only his fingers, Claire still couldn't free her arms.

"Please, Claire. These aren't the actions of a woman of your caliber," he taunted.

"_God, why can't I see him move?_" she thought, horrified. The way he was acting made it look like he wasn't even trying to subdue her. Claire's legs were still free, so she kicked at his leg. She was surprised when she struck it just above the knee. Instead of hyper-extending it, her boot just impacted his leg. Wesker smiled.

"Bastard!" she choked out. She tried to put on a brave face, but her fear was getting the best of her. Wesker knew it, too.

"You're a little more feisty since we last met," he said. "I see that Chris is a good trainer."

Vanishing before her eyes again, she felt her gun get whisked from her hand as her arms came untangled. At the same time, there was a violent wind and the feeling of fabric pulling at her neck. Her scarf disappeared from her neck. Wesker was now standing in front of her, her scarf and gun in his left hand, and his right hand clutched around her right arm. As he held her arm at arms length, he walked around her, forcing Claire to turn on the spot. She resorted to beating at his arm with her fist.

"You always had such a flair about you, Claire," he said admiring the scarf and ignoring her strikes. "I've always admired your individuality."

Behind them, two soldiers entered the warehouse. Claire tried to remain strong, but she was beginning to lose hope. What were they going to do with her?

"Wh-what do you want?" she stammered. Wesker chuckled, still turning her in their awkward ballet.

"Dear Heart," he said, calling her as if they were dating, "I thought you knew. I want Chris dead."

Of course she knew, but she didn't want to believe it. It was all happening just like in Antarctica. Wesker had grabbed Claire as Chris was finishing off Alexia Ashford. He almost killed Chris, and Steve...

"What did you do with Steve?" she screamed. Finding new strength in her emotions, she grabbed his arm and pulled herself towards him. She threw a kick at his stomach. It bounced off his gut harmlessly. Wesker scoffed.

"Ultimately, he proved useless, so rest easy Dear Heart, your lover rests in peace."

He gave Claire a little shove, into the arms of the two soldiers behind her. They each grabbed her wrists and arms. They might not have been subhumanly strong, as Wesker was, but she was still helpless without a weapon. Wesker discarded her gun across the room, and dropped her scarf.

"I'm sure you know, Claire, that your brother will come running to your rescue once he finds out that I have you and such." Wesker waved his hand. "I admit it's not original, but it does work quite effectively."

He was right. It worked in Antarctica, and it worked when Umbrella themselves had kidnapped her. Each time, Chris came to rescue her, and almost died in the process.

"I'll let you in on a secret, Claire," Wesker said. "It was me and my team who activated the shutter that separated you from the S.T.A.R.S. It's a pity that I didn't get Chris instead, but no matter. We've sealed them in that sector, except for a route which leads them here."

"Why?" she asked, fighting back tears of anger now.

"We released a manufactured form of the T-virus into the facility. It's been weakened, so it won't affect living creatures. But it is extremely effective on the dead. As I'm sure you've seen, there is a surplus of corpses in that area."

"_No! With the virus, the dead will reanimate and mutate!_" she realized. Her heart beat wildly. "I thought that you wanted to kill Chris yourself." She sneered. "Lost the nerve to face him?" Wesker laughed.

"Hardly. I have the utmost confidence that Chris will survive. He's handled his share of Hunters and zombies in the past. I could care less what happens to the rest of them. The less loose ends, the better. Chris will come straight here." He spoke to his soldiers.

"Take her to the observation room. I'll be their shortly."


	13. Chapter 13

**Chapter 13: Lighting the Fuse**

Without warning, more shutters covered the other doors in the room. The only way open to the S.T.A.R.S was the way they came. The four of them stood there, contemplating their next move. They didn't know what set off the shutters. They didn't hear an alarm. The possibility of Wesker and his organization was growing stronger.

"Let's head to the central control room, and activate the self-destruct." Chris said. "If we can, we give as much time as possible, so we can guarantee that Claire makes it to the elevator. We meet up with her, and get the hell out of here."

"I hate to be the one to say it Chris," said Rebecca hesitantly. "But what if she's not waiting there for us?" Chris set his jaw.

"Then we go over this place until we find her. We'll reset the sequence, and sweep the entire place clean. Hunters or not."

They left the room and ran down the hall. Jill was out in front, followed by Barry. It wasn't long before they reached the control center. Rebecca slid Bale's card into the computer, and it registered correctly. Carefully sifting through the program, Rebecca found the detonation timer. She set it for thirty minutes. With Chris's approval, she activated the sequence. At the same time, they synced their watches to the countdown sequence. At once, a voice spoke calmly over the loudspeakers.

"_Warning. The self-destruct sequence has been activated. The facility will detonate in thirty minutes. All personnel please evacuate._"

"Now what?" asked Barry. Rebecca pulled out the map.

"We head through that last hallway and take a left. That will lead us straight to the elevator, and Claire," she said.

They booked it down the hall. The alarm lights were flashing, but there was no audible warning over the loudspeakers. The closer it got to detonating, the more agitated the system would become.

As they entered a lab, the loudspeakers crackled, and a familiar voice rang out.

"It seems you enjoy fouling my plans, Chris." Chris's face drew back into an enraged grimace.

"Wesker!"

"I've been watching you all for quite some time now, and I am very impressed with your survival skills. No doubt you appreciated my gift in Washington." Now the team noticed the security cameras along the walls. Each one in the room was trained directly on them. On the other side of them sat Wesker.

"He was responsible for the sniper?" Barry asked. Rebecca winced. One of the shots that the sniper fired passed right through her leg. It was still sore.

"I have a new gift for you now, I hope you enjoy it," Wesker continued. Chris looked at his watch. 28:36 left. It wasn't the time for a showdown with Wesker. In a little under half an hour, the facility would be a smoking crater. Wesker had to have known this. He was backing them into a corner, but what was preventing them from just leaving?

"Chris, I would like to meet in person. You wouldn't think about leaving your sister here, would you?"

"_That son of a bitch! He's got her!_" Chris realized. Wesker laughed over the loudspeaker.

"I see you figured it out," he said. "It's always been so easy to read your body language, Chris. Yes, I have Claire. She would very much like to see you again. I'll be waiting in the auxiliary warehouse. I suggest you hurry." With that, the loudspeaker fell silent.

"Fuck!" Chris yelled, slamming the butt of his shotgun on a desk. "_Why is it always Claire they go after?_" He was the one to blame for bringing her into this. He should have forced her to live far away, from both Umbrella and Wesker. Too late for that now.

There was a moan from the side of the room. Only now they realized that this lab was the place another shooting. More bodies lay around, riddled with wounds. One of them was feebly trying to move. It was a woman. Her long hair was obscuring her face as she tried to prop herself on her hands and knees. The room was dim; many of the lights were out, or were flickering.

"A survivor?" Jill wondered. Rebecca ran over to her side right away. The woman was shot through the lower back. She unslung her backpack and unzipped it, taking out a first aid kit and some medical tools.

"Please, don't move," she told her "You're hurt pretty bad." She placed her hands, gently on the shoulders of the woman, trying to coax her to lie still. Meanwhile, Barry and Chris were thinking.

"Weren't all of these bodies cold when we found them?" Chris asked slowly, turning off the safety of his gun.

"Yeah, they were. These people were shot weeks ago. There's no way." He raised his Colt Python. "Rebecca, don't! Get away from her!"

In a blur, the woman grabbed Rebecca's shoulders and pushed her to the ground. Her hair brushed aside and they saw her face. Her eyes were bone white with pus, and blood was spilling out of her eyes and mouth. She showed the same mummified characteristics of the other bodies they had seen. Rebecca screamed as the woman tried to take a bite out of her neck. Barry's magnum sang out and took off the greater part of the former woman's head. Rebecca shoved the corpse off of her and scooted away from it on her hands. Jill helped her up. Around them, more bodies were starting to move.

The rest of them readied their weapons. Many of the corpses were already on their feet. All of them looked similar to each other; their eyes were whited out, with blood pouring from them. Instead of shuffling towards them slowly, they rushed forward, arms outstretched. The S.T.A.R.S's weapons ignited and they shot them down.

"Move!" Jill yelled. They ran for the door. Chris and Rebecca spun around, unloading a shotgun and a handgun into the mass of undead in pursuit. Blood drenched the floor as they poured rounds into them. Once through the door, Chris shut it. He heard the bodies of the former scientists bombard the door.

They took off down the hall. Several corpses in the hall were on their feet. The team dropped them as the charged. While running, they reloaded. Spent magazines from Rebecca and Jill fell behind them, as well as six loose .357 casings from Barry's magnum. Chris shoved some more rounds into his shotgun.

"Something either spilled, or they shot something through the ventilation system," Barry said. 'They' was Wesker. "They aren't normal zombies."

"Remember what happened in the mansion?" Jill panted. "Some of these things mutated if you let them sit too long. They got stronger and faster."

"Crimson Heads," said Chris. This was bad. Whatever infected the dead, it mutated faster than the T-virus did in Raccoon City. Instead of zombies, they were shooting Crimson Heads. They were the same as zombies, but stronger and faster. With as many bodies they had seen, Chris wasn't sure if they had enough ammo to fend them off. Tack on the Hunters, and the fact that the facility was going to blow in about twenty-five minutes, they may as well be dead already.

Blasting the head off of a Crimson Head with his shotgun, Chris and the others came to another lab. It was already full them. They made a B-line for the door on the other side. Their guns mowed down more of them, making a path. During the fray, Rebecca snatched Jill's sidearm from it's holster and fired both guns in each hand. Jill fell two with her weapon, then kicked a third as it lunged for her. They made it to the door just as most of their weapons ran dry.

Barry started to shut the door behind them, but several Crimson Heads got their bodies wedged in the door. Rebecca leveled her guns and unloaded both clips into them. They fell back, and she kicked the last one out of the door frame. Barry slammed it shut.

Another calamity: three Hunters bounded into the hall from an adjoining one. Chris had only had time to load two shells into his gun. He fired them both and dropped a Hunter. He drew his sidearm and emptied the clip into another. Both of Rebecca's guns clicked dry after she fired three shots into the second one. Jill was struggling to slide her last clip into her MP-5K. The remaining Hunter leaped and slashed at Rebecca. Barry shoved her out of the way, and the Hunters claw glanced his Kevlar. It sliced through it, leaving four large gouges. Barry grunted as the claws nicked his torso. He and Rebecca tumbled to the floor.

Jill succeed in stabbing her magazine into her gun. Releasing the slide quickly, she drained half the clip into the beast, and it fell. Rebecca crawled out from under Barry, and quickly unstrapped his armor. Luckily, the claw didn't cut deep, but it left four long slits that bled profusely. Barry groaned in pain and held this injury.

"No! I dropped my kit!" she said when she felt for the shoulder straps of her back pack, only to find them gone. She dug in her pockets and breathed a sigh of relief. She had a small, one time use canister of First Aid Spray about the size of a jar of nail polish. "I wish I had more, Barry. I'm sorry."

She sprayed it on thinly. The canister ran out almost immediately. Barry groaned in pain again as his blood clotted and the disinfectants worked. Chris and Rebecca helped haul him to his feet.

"Can you walk?" Chris asked, worried. Barry pursed his lips.

"I'm fine," he replied, picking up his magnum. Chris could tell he was lying.

Three paths presented themselves to the S.T.A.R.S. They all stretched out in opposite directions.

"This one leads to the surface elevator," said Rebecca, pointing to the far left hall, where the Hunters had come from. She was out of breath from their running, and from the Hunter attack. "The middle one leads to the warehouse."

As soon as Chris heard this, he ran straight ahead. He was going for Wesker. The rest of them ran after him. Jill had Barry's arm slung over her shoulder as she helped him walk. They didn't encounter anymore Crimson Heads. Chris burst through the warehouse's double doors and aimed his shotgun.

Wesker was standing in the middle of the room, alone. Claire was nowhere in sight. Jill, Barry, and Rebecca followed shortly, also raising their weapons at Wesker. All of them, especially Chris, seethed at the sight of their betraying commander.

"Where is she?" Chris demanded. Wesker chortled.

"She's in the experimental observation room two levels up. Take the stairs down the hall." Wesker told them and smiled sinisterly.

"_Too easy,_" thought Chris. "Why are you telling us straight up?"

"You asked, didn't you? Don't worry, she's not alone. I left someone...special...with her."

Enraged, Chris took a few steps forward, aiming at Wesker's face.

"What did you do to her?"

"Not a thing. You know I wouldn't hurt a hair on your lovely sister's head." Chris knew he was lying. Claire had told him how he throttled her around on Rockfort." But I wouldn't worry about that Chris. You have a decision to make. Fight, or run off and save your sister." He looked at his watch. "Either way, you only have time for one. If you choose to fight, how will your sister think of you when you don't show up to save her? On the other hand, if you turn to run, what's preventing me from killing you all with your backs turned?"

Chris peeked at his watch. He always wore the face of it against the bottom of his wrist, so he could easily see it while he was holding his gun's forearm. 21:13. Wesker might be lying about Claire's location, so it would take them a while to battle through the facility to find her. They then had to get to a safe distance from the facility when it exploded. If that was the case, it would be a close call.

On the other hand, what if Wesker was telling the truth? Jill, Barry and Rebecca could get her while he dealt with Wesker. But why would he reveal her location so willingly? Chris had a sinking feeling about the whole thing. One thing was for certain: they had to split up.

"Guys, get Claire. He's mine," Chris said.

"Chris..." Jill began. Chris knew what she was going to say. They all had a reason to kill him themselves.

"Don't argue, just go," he commanded. "Get out of here, and keep her safe."

Reluctantly, the rest of them turned and bolted down the hall. Chris and Wesker were left alone. Their footsteps faded away. Wesker was unarmed, other than the knife he had at his belt. Chris had his SPAS-12 shouldered and his sidearm underneath his arm in it's holster. Still, Chris was on guard. He had fought Wesker toe to toe in Antarctica, and he knew how unbelievably fast and strong he was. Wesker cracked a knuckle and smirked.

"Let's try this again."

Above them, large holes were ripped into the metal of the air ducts. More than a dozen Hunters landed on either side and in between them.


	14. Chapter 14

**Chapter 14: Survival**

No sooner had the guards hauled Claire out of the warehouse, she heard the voice over the loudspeaker.

"_Warning. The self-destruct sequence has been activated. The facility will detonate in thirty minutes. All personnel please evacuate._"

Claire shot a grin over her shoulder at Wesker, who was following behind. His expression didn't change, but no doubt he was pissed.

Although she looked cocky, Claire was actually a little nervous. She was standing in the middle of a bomb that would go off all too soon, not to mention that she was being captured by their worst enemy. She hoped that Chris and the others could save her and then escape together.

All throughout the way, the soldiers kept Claire in their grip. They hauled her roughly through the halls, one on either side of her, her arms pinned down to her sides. Even if she could break free from them, she was no match for Wesker. They met no resistance from Hunters, or from any mutated corpses. Of course, Wesker would have been careful to not put himself in danger while trying to kill the S.T.A.R.S. Claire figured they sealed off a part of the facility as a safe haven for themselves.

"_They'll be packing up soon, what with the destruct system going off and all._ _They must not want to risk men by moving deeper into the facility to shut it off._"

They stopped outside a door. One of them pressed a pad and the door hissed open. Claire grunted as they shoved her inside, then followed her. Wesker kept going, passed the door. He did say that he would join them shortly... Claire was left to rub her sore wrist and stare at the soldiers who blocked the door. Neither of them blinked.

The room was metal plated. There was a thick pane of glass, no doubt shatterproof, on one side. A metal blast door was on the other. The whole room was fairly small.

"_What did he say this was? The observation room?_" Claire wondered. Well, Umbrella did make bioweapons here, so they needed a place to observe how they acted. Claire noticed several deep scratches in the walls. "_They must test out subjects here. They come in through that blast door, and rip something apart._"

Claire gulped at the thought. A few minutes passed, and the door hissed open again. Wesker was back, followed by a third soldier. The soldier was unarmed, other than the pistol at his hip. Wesker pushed his sunglasses up on the bridge of his nose.

"We're leaving. You two, cuff her, and escort Dr. Bale to the helicopter."

Claire couldn't do anything but squirm as one of the soldiers pulled her arms behind her back while the other slapped a pair of handcuffs around her wrists. They left silently, leaving Claire alone with Wesker and the third soldier.

"What's the point of these?" she angrily, curling her hands and twisting the cold metal behind her back. They had her trapped in here anyways. There was no way to open the door from the inside. How much more helpless did they think she could get?

"Entertainment," Wesker replied cryptically, adjusting his sunglasses. "I'm afraid we have been forced to leave. My reunion with your brother will have to be brief."

"Y-you just can't leave me here!" Claire stammered. Wesker's cold smile crossed his face again.

"You are absolutely right, Claire. I had no intention of leaving you alone." He turned to the soldier next to him. "Private, your sidearm, please."

Claire's heart beat faster. Was he going to execute her right here? But what was the point of going through the trouble of dragging her here and handcuffing her?

The soldier had a quizzical look on his face, but he obeyed Wesker's order. He unclipped his holster and pulled out his handgun and spun it, so the the grip landed in Wesker's outstretched hand. No sooner had the soldier retracted his arm, a gunshot rang out. Claire and the soldier jumped.

The gun in Wesker's hand was pointing at the soldier. A thin wisp of smoke trailed from the barrel. The soldier's hand clutched to the side of his chest, and his black glove came away dark red. He turned his head and saw a shotgun spatter of blood on the metal wall next to him. He groaned and fell to his knees, finally realizing that Wesker had shot him. The bullet entered in the gap of his body armor, on the left side of his body. Falling forward, he tried to catch himself with the hand that wasn't holding his side. He wheezed and fell forward, his head turned to the side. His glassy eyes were locked on Claire, as if begging her to help him.

Claire sputtered as she watched this cruel scene.

"Wh-what was that for?" she asked, frightened. She swallowed nervously, and her heart beat even faster. Had Wesker lost it? The soldier's blood slowly began to pool. He had stopped moving.

"You forget, Dear Heart, that this facility has a virus leaking through it. By now, it has fully saturated every room, and in about..." he looked at his watch. "...oh say, five or so minutes, our friend here will be good as new. You'll have about twenty minutes to spend together until the facility explodes...If you last that long." He turned to leave the room.

As he turned, Claire dashed at Wesker angrily. There was no way he was going to kill her like this. As Claire neared him, his back suddenly became his front. He grabbed the collar of her thermal shirt as she kicked at him. Before her kick landed, he flung her into a corner. She hit hard, and slid down the wall. Her arms took most of the impact. Wesker only looked at her through his black sunglasses. Claire couldn't tell what he was thinking. He left the room and shut the door.

The body of the soldier was still staring at Claire. Her uneven breaths were the only thing she could hear in the otherwise silent room. She struggled to her feet with great difficulty; her arms were useless. She ran to the door and began to kick it. The metal didn't even dent as she struck it again and again. Her leg screamed in pain, and she threw herself against the door, exhausted. She broke out in a light sweat, which instantly chilled her.

"_Dammit, do NOT start crying!_" she ordered herself. She was on the verge of breaking down. Trapped, frustrated, and afraid, Claire somehow managed to maintain herself. She tried the window. She banged her elbow on it, but just from the solid feel she knew it was hopeless. She looked at the corpse again. It's blood had pooled further on the metal floor.

No matter what she could think of, there was no way to escape the room. It was designed to keep genetically enhanced monsters in. A handcuffed college girl had no chance of getting out. The seconds passing Claire were agonizing. Any minute now...

The corpse gave a twitch. Claire gasped and backed away slowly. She bumped into the cold metal wall behind her. Her chest heaved up and down; her body was desperately trying to cope with the stress. The body didn't move, and Claire desperately hoped that Wesker had miscalculated, and the virus wasn't going to work.

The wall numbed her hands. Claire suddenly mentally kicked herself. Jill had taught her something about handcuffs! Claire slowly squatted down, keeping her eyes on the body, and tried to slide her hands and handcuffs underneath her boots. With her arms in front of her, she had a better chance to defend herself, even if they were still cuffed together. She got one leg over the chain, then proceeded to step over her other one.

The corpse bolted upright and let out an airy scream. Claire started and fell over, her other leg passing over the chain of the handcuffs. The corpse scrambled to its feet just as Claire did and rushed her. She got her arm up against it's neck just in time. It sandwiched her against the wall, it's mouth wide open. Surprised by it's strength, it got within a few inches of Claire's neck and began to snap it's jaws. She slowly managed to push it back.

It's eyes still stared deep into Claire's. They had been a pleasant green. Claire even thought them to be attractive when she first saw them. Now they were almost completely pale white. Only a few green strands of his iris' remained. The corpse overpowered her again and tried to bite. Claire pushed it off of her and kicked at it, knocking it off it's feet.

Shaking, Claire raised her arms in defense. The corpse sprang to it's feet again and lunged. Claire kicked it again, then struck it across the face with her a jab. Her other arm clumsily followed it because of the handcuffs. Stunned, it moaned and teetered back. She stepped and kicked it in the face, once again knocking it off of it's feet. It fell back and went still.

Panting lightly, Claire slowly approached it and looked at it. It jumped up again and grabbed Claire before she could react. Both of the fell to the ground, the corpse on top of Claire, once again straining to bite her neck. Claire got the chain of her handcuffs on it's throat just in time, and pushed it's head away.

"_Why is it so strong?_" she thought as she grappled with it It's neck stretched against the steel chain of her restraints. It was gasping horribly as it yearned for her. "_My arms are already tired...Please Chris, hurry!_"

Claire could feel the stickiness of blood on herself as she struggled. The thing had been lying in it's own blood, and now was covered in it. The blood transferred to Claire as she fought. She kneed it in the side, and managed to tip it off of her. She rolled on top of it, then punched it in the face, rocking it's head against the floor. She tried to strike it again, but it grabbed her wrist, and tried to bite. She wrenched her arm free just as she felt it's teeth scrape her flesh.

The corpse managed to thrash Claire off of itself. She fell forward. As it tried to get up, Claire kicked it across the face, then scrambled to her feet. Panting, she tried to regain her fighting stance, but the corpse was too quick. It lunged for her, but she managed to throw it off of her as they fell on the floor again.

Getting up, Claire ran to the other side of the room. The corpse chased her, and she tried to push it away with a kick. Her fatigued body couldn't handle any more, and the kick only slightly affected it. It grabbed her shoulder and wrapped it's other arm around her back. Claire once again pressed her arm against it's neck, trying to keep it's deadly teeth away from her throat.

The corpse never tired or weakened. It's white eyes stared hungrily at Claire as it inched closer. She was slowly losing the battle. Centimeter by centimeter, its mouth was getting closer. Both of her arms felt like they were on fire. She vocally strained as she tried to muster more strength from herself. The handcuffs she wore jingled as her arms shook, both in terror and in stress. Her strains turned into whimpers as it's mouth got slowly closer. Claire tried to turn her head away from it, but the wall behind her prevented it. Her action only exposed her neck more.

Still slowly, her arms collapsed. She could feel its still warm breath on her face as it greedily panted for the blood in her carotid artery. It's teeth were only a few inches away, and Claire's strength was seconds from fading.

"_Chris...please..._" her mind whimpered. Even though she mentally begged for her brother, she knew that he was too late. If Wesker didn't kill him, he would come in on her mangled corpse as this monster devoured her. She closed her eyes, and a tear rolled down her cheek. "_If only I could see his face one last time..._" She felt its lips touch her skin.

The zombie was suddenly pulled away from Claire. Barry's strong hand was grasped around the former soldier's body armor. He threw it to the floor, and promptly executed it with a shot to it's head from his magnum. Claire collapsed to the floor, a physical and emotional wreck. That was twice he saved her.

Rebecca and Jill were also with him. In the panic during her struggle, Claire didn't even hear them open the door and rush in. Chris was nowhere in sight. They pulled Claire to her feet. She was exhausted from her struggling with the zombie. She wasn't sobbing, but a few tears were silently running. She huddled into Rebecca and Jill. She wanted to hug all of them, but her restraints prevented it.

"Thank you...I-I-I was so scared..." she said, her voice shaking.

"Don't worry Claire, you're safe," Jill soothed, patting her back. "Now lets do something about those handcuffs. We have to get out of here."

Claire sniffed and held out her hands. They didn't have a key, so Claire had no idea how they were going to free her. To her surprise, Jill snatched one on the bobby pins in Claire's hair. She pried off the plastic caps on it, and bent the pin straight. Sticking it into the keyhole, she bent the pin several times, leaving a little hook on the end. Jill stuck it back into the key hole, and turned her wrist. The cuff popped off Claire's wrist. Jill quickly released the other cuff and they fell to the floor. Claire looked at her in amazement.

"How...?" she began. Jill smiled broadly and winked at her.

"You forget, I'm the S.T.A.R.S B/E specialist, also known as..." Barry laughed.

"The Master of Unlocking."


	15. Chapter 15

**Chapter 15: Face to Face**

"_Dammit, not now!_"

Chris whirled and leveled his shotgun at the nearest Hunter. He blew it away with a single shot. Immediately, he turned to the next one, pumping the forearm of his shotgun, and fired again. He stepped away from the outstretched claws of another as it swiped at him. He buried a shell in it's scaly back as it passed. The shotguns force blew a hole clean through the Hunter. The air was full of shrieks as they writhed and died.

Pumping another round into his shotgun, he fired at a charging Hunter. It stayed on it's feet, taking the spray of buckshot head on. Chris fired again and it fell back. A fifth Hunter leaped at him and swiped. Chris ducked and felt a rush of wind over his head. Turning he shot the Hunter in the stomach, then butted it with his shotgun.

Even more Hunters lunged for Wesker. Blurring into a collage of black, he struck the first in it's stunted lizard head with his fist. There was a sickening crunch as it's skull collapsed. Wesker dematerialized again and reappeared, backfisting another one, sending it into a rapid spiral, the vertebrae in it's neck ripping themselves apart.

With a brief glint of light, he had unsheathed his knife, and two more Hunters fell in a single, sightless swipe. One leaped for him from afar. As it sailed through the air, Wesker blurred out and appeared in front of it, striking it with his fist. The force from his acceleration propelled the Hunter across the floor and into the warehouse wall thirty feet behind it. A split second later, he turned into a whirlwind, slashing the tendons of another Hunter, then dropping his boot on its skull, finishing it.

Chris dropped his sixth Hunter and turned towards Wesker. He had just finished off the last two Hunters, and stood in a ring of corpses. His shotgun at his hip, Chris lined up his shot just as Wesker turned to face him. Chris pulled the trigger.

A hollow click rang out.

"_Fuck!_" Chris swore. He dropped his shotgun and it fell to the floor. He reached and drew his sidearm from its holster underneath his left arm. As he touched it, he heard his shotgun hit the floor. He pulled the gun free of the holster. Both of his eyes were still trained on Wesker, who hadn't moved. Chris blinked.

Wesker was now standing next to Chris, right in front of him. He grabbed his arm before it got an inch from the holster. A force he couldn't see, presumably Wesker's fist, struck him across the face, turning his head painfully. The next thing he knew, Wesker hurled him across the floor. Chris's gun was no longer in his hand. Wesker had it, and he promptly ejected the clip, pulled back the slide and ejected the chambered bullet. He then pulled the slide forward, fingered the release, and pulled the slide off the top of the gun. Wesker tossed them to opposite corners of the room.

Chris rolled over and got to his feet. Wesker was calmly walking towards him. Chris threw a punch, which Wesker easily blocked. He punched again and again, aiming for different vital spots: the nose, throat, and eyes. Wesker blocked each one. Chris drew his knee up to strike Wesker in the stomach. Wesker blocked it as well, both of his arms holding it in a low X near his gut. Chris saw his chance and head butted Wesker in the face. He heard the sound of breaking plastic as his forehead collided with Wesker's skull.

His own head swimming, Chris looked and saw the thing that he dreaded the most: Wesker's eyes. They were no longer human. Instead of a circular pupil, they had cat like slits. Both of his iris's were blood red, and seemed to glow like fire in the dim light.

Unaffected, Wesker drove his fist into Chris's stomach. Chris lost all of his breath, and bent forward. Wesker drove his knee into Chris's face. Chris toppled over and hit the ground hard on his back.

"You seem to be actually trying this time," Wesker mocked, removing the unbroken half of his sunglasses from his face and casting them away. "I hope this turns out better than that sorry attempt you showed me in the Antarctic."

Chris rolled over and spit. It came out bloody. He struggled to his hands and knees. While he got up, he feinted and threw a kick at Wesker. It caught him in the stomach. Wesker jerked a bit from the kick, and grabbed Chris's foot. Chris lashed out with his other leg, aiming for Wesker's knee. It landed low and stuck him in the shin. Wesker dropped to one knee, surprised, and let go of Chris's foot. Chris drew his leg back to his chest and kicked again, this time hitting Wesker full in the face. He fell back, but was back on his feet in a blur of motion. Chris got up a little more slowly. Wesker grinned, his face showing only his smile, and not the slightest bit of damage.

"Not bad," he said. He vanished from Chris's eyes, and he felt what felt like a cement block strike his ribcage. He saw Wesker only for a split second as he stopped to change direction. Another blow landed on the back of his legs, knocking him to his knees. He caught a glimpse of Wesker's leg as it swiped across his face. Chris fell to the ground again.

Chris had a hard time focusing. His entire body was in pain. Several of his ribs were broken, and he was coughing up blood from internal injuries. While trying to raise himself by his arms, he saw his watch. 16:15. He struggled to his feet, shakily. His vision was beginning to blur. Blood pouring from his nose dripped off of his chin and onto the floor. A scrape along his scalp was staining his hair, and leaking blood into his eye.

"_Have to...finish...this,_" he thought blearily. He took a step forward and almost fell over. Wesker was beating him senseless. There was another strike on his torso; it was more of a push this time. Wesker had flung him back into a crate. Calmly strolling to Chris, he grabbed him by the throat as he slid down the container, then raised him into the air one handed.

Chris grasped Wesker's hand as he was suspended him against the metal crate. The vice at this throat completely blocked his air, and slowed the passage of blood in both his carotid and jugular. He gasped and twitched as he started to black out. Wesker had lost his cool exterior. Now, his teeth were bared and he glared at Chris with intent hatred.

"Oh, you have NO idea how long I've waited to kill you with my bare hands!" he ranted. Through his fading vision, Chris saw Wesker's evil eyes glow an even brighter shade of red. "When I am finished with you, all of my problems will be at an end!"

"_So...he wins_," Chris thought, as his vision faded to black.

"Wesker!" screamed a new voice. Chris felt Wesker's hand slacken, and he gasped deeply. His vision started to come back. Shifting his eyes, he saw the owner of the voice at the far end of the room, by the door.

It was Claire. She was holding Jill's handgun at Wesker. Barry, Rebecca and Jill were right behind her, aiming their guns at him. Wesker turned and held Chris, still by the throat, in front of him, blocking their shots. Chris's feet still dangled as Wesker held him suspended.

While he was reveling in Chris's demise, the sound of sliding metal hit Wesker's ears. It was coming from Chris. He looked down, and saw that Chris had pulled a grenade from his pocket. He had pulled the pin, and was now loosening his grip on the spoon. The spoon sprang off, spiraling between them. Wesker's eyes widened in surprise as he watched it dance between them. Chris dropped the grenade, and it clattered at their feet. Wesker's grip loosened even more on Chris's throat.

Chris struck Wesker's arm with his own, knocking it free of his throat. Wesker was still looking at the grenade as it shuffled on the floor between them. Chris shoved off of Wesker and hurled himself over a low crate. Just then, Wesker realized he was standing next to a set of drums marked 'Flammable.'

"Oh bloody..." he began and disappeared. The grenade went off and ignited half the room. Claire and the others dove back into the hall and took cover from flying shrapnel. Behind his crate, Chris felt an intense wave of heat sap his body of moisture and curl the hair on his arms. Flames bathed the area around him, but the initial shockwave was dampened by the crate. He stood up, seeing only an inferno, and not Wesker. This was short lived, as Chris heard his voice rage over the crackle of fire.

"Chris! We'll call this a draw. I'll admit I underestimated your stupidity this time. Just remember: third time's the charm." After that, he was gone.

Chris turned and tried to get to Claire. She was running towards him. He slipped on some rubble on the floor and fell. Because of his injuries, he couldn't catch himself. He felt Claire slide next to him, and her hands pulled him over, his head on her lap.

"Oh Chris," she said, trying to mop the blood off of his face. Chris saw her face glowing orange in the light of the fire through his swelling eyes.

"Sorry I didn't come to save you Claire," he muttered. "I guess my temper got the best of me again."

"You idiot! I'll chew you out later," she said. "We have to get out of here. This place is going to light up." Jill, Barry, and Rebecca had joined them. Jill and Claire helped Chris up, than each slung an arm over their shoulders. They left the blazing warehouse, and headed to the second surface level elevator.


	16. Chapter 16

**Chapter 16: Frozen**

The team panted as they booked it down the final hallway. The elevator finally came into view. It was identical the the one they had entered from. It was large and had thick metal doors. The only difference it had was that it had more floors to ascend before reaching the surface.

"Thank God!" exclaimed Claire, straining as she tried to support a weakened Chris with Jill. He was only barley able to trudge his feet, so they mostly dragged him. She sneaked a peek at her watch, and her heart quickened. 10:56. It was going to be close. Rebecca darted ahead and slapped the call button on the elevator panel.

"_Come on, come ON!_" Claire thought impatiently. She really did not want to die in a fiery explosion because of a slow elevator. After a few agonizing seconds, the doors finally slid open. As they hauled Chris in, the air ducts exploded again. Half a dozen Hunters flew from the holes and bounded toward the elevator, screaming.

"Barry, Jill!" Claire screamed. They all turned their guns on the advancing pack and fired. Dodging the shots, some of them leaped up onto the walls, their claws leaving deep holes in the metal. A few of them fell as their guns clicked empty. The Hunters continued to speed along the walls towards them. They were out of ammo, permanently. Just as the Hunters closed in, the doors shut, and they heard a massive impact against the door as the reptilian beasts collided with it. A few large dents appeared on the elevator door, and then spread in lines as the Hunters dragged their claws against the doors.

The elevator rose, carrying the team to the surface. All of them panted, trying to catch their breath from the run to the elevator, and the inevitable run ahead of them. Just before the doors opened, Claire looked at her watch again. 8:34. Helping Jill with Chris again, they ran out of the elevator and down the hall, bursting through the door. Cold Alaskan wind hit them as they left the hall, and they took off through the snow. The snow was about a foot deep, and impeded their speed greatly. The S.T.A.R.S ran in a straight line; the only thing on their mind was to get as much distance from the facility as possible.

After a ways into the forest surrounding the clearing where the elevator was, they came to a frozen creek. It had dug a deep rut into the earth. Claire checked the time. 0:35. They were still too close to the facility for comfort. Umbrella wasn't stupid enough to have used a nuke this close to civilization, but there could still be a lot of firepower tucked in the core of the facility. They had no way of telling what was going to go off.

"Guys, thirty-five seconds!" she warned.

"We have to take cover," Jill panted from Chris's side. "Everyone, press up against the creek bed." Claire, Jill and Chris slid down the snowy bank to where the creek had cut into the ground. Barry slid down after them. Rebecca tripped, and tumbled down the slope. Barry caught her before she struck the ice, and she spit out a mouthful of snow. Eyes to her watch, Claire saw the time. 0:10.

"Duck and cover!" barked Jill, and they threw themselves into the snow and ground, covering their heads. Claire jumped on top of Chris, and buried both of their heads, just as he had done to protect her from the grenade in the facility. The facility exploded.

It sounded like a stick of dynamite went off next to Claire's head. The explosion was stunning. The initial concussion deafened Claire, leaving a ringing in her ears. The entire ground shook as the shockwave passed them and moved into the forest. Snow fell from the trees around them in a white rain. There was an uneasy pause, then debris began to rain down upon them. Jagged hunks of flaming metal and other materials beat the ground all around. They were all peppered with smaller bits of rubble as it continued to fall from the sky. Luck was with them as none of the bigger chunks landed on them.

The S.T.A.R.S remained huddled until the sounds of wreckage falling ceased. Poking their heads over the edge of the creek bed, they saw a pillar of black smoke rising in the sky. Rebecca scurried up the slope to have a better look.

"Nothing but fire," she called.

"Nice," Jill said, smiling.

"We need to move," Barry said. "Before we freeze to death. Rebecca, how far are we from our transport." Rebecca pulled the GPS from her pocket and turned it on. It took a minute for the satellites to align.

"Not too far," she announced, her teeth chattering. "About a ten minute walk, if we book it." They moved out. It wasn't snowing anymore, but it was still freezing. Once again, Claire helped up Chris with Jill. The cold and snow seemed to have helped pull his awareness back. He dismissed Jill's help, and stayed supported only with Claire.

Wading through the snow, they slowly progressed to where their snowmobiles were hidden. The wind had picked up since they arrived, and within five minutes, the team was chilled to the bone. They all longed for their parkas, which were now ash scattered in the wind. Claire tried to huddle into Chris for warmth; she could feel him doing the same. Her face had become a block of ice, and her fingers, which were exposed through her gloves, were numb.

Ahead of them, Rebecca thumbed through the map on her GPS. The device shook wildly in her hands as she shivered. She was pale, and stumbled through the snow irregularly. As she tried to lead them, her hand went up and fumbled with the zipper on her S.T.A.R.S vest, unzipping it halfway. Barry caught up to her and snatched her hand away, then grabbed her by the shoulders, shaking her slightly.

"Rebecca, you still with us?" he shouted. Rebecca's eyes danced lazily over Barry's face, and she fell over his shoulder. Her body wouldn't stop shaking. "Guys, we need to double time it. Rebecca's starting to succumb to hypothermia." He slung Rebecca's small form over his broad shoulder and trudged ahead. The snowmobiles finally came into sight. The rest of them weren't far from joining Rebecca, and they still had a short ride in front of them.

This time, Claire drove, and Chris clung onto her. Through the freezing wind, they headed back to the village they were staying at. Claire could feel her eyes gumming up in the cold. She prayed that nothing would catch frostbite, or pass out as hypothermia overtook them. The ride seemed to last longer than before, and already she was feeling faint.

Most of the village's population was outside was outside, marveling at the pillar of smoke rising from the woods. None of them really noticed the team as they pulled into the lot through the trail in the back. Hastily parking the snowcraft, they darted into the dealership. The man who had seen them off was sitting behind a desk. He stared at the team as they piled into the building. He started to get up as Barry entered with a near unconscious Rebecca and dropped her onto a row of seats. Jill waved him back down.

"We're fine," she snapped. They didn't need more attention drawn to themselves. They were already covered in blood and bandages. He eyed the claw mark on Barry's side and grimaced.

"I won't ask," is all he said. Claire helped Chris to a chair and looked at his injuries. Aside from some harsh looking bruises and cuts, he was fine. Once they warmed up, they would have to get him to a hospital. He had suffered a lot worse at the hands of Umbrella.

Rebecca was slowly becoming coherent. Her lips had gone back from blue to their original color, and the color was flushing back into her cheeks. Barry gently slapped the side of her cheek, slowly getting her attention back.

"Hey, Rebecca. Wake up, we have to get moving," Barry said. Rebecca shivered again.

"It's cold..." she said, shivering. Barry briskly rubbed her arms, trying to warm her.

"Yeah. We almost lost you there for a minute."

While Barry helped Rebecca to her feet, Claire went to the desk to see if they could leave right away.

"Do we need to do anything to break our rental or what?" she asked the man.

"Just need a signature," he responded. Claire hastily jotted her name down on the form, and they left. They piled into Rebecca's truck, with Jill behind the wheel. Barry took the front seat, and Rebecca sat in between Chris and Claire, huddling into them for warmth. Jill hit the gas and Barry pulled out a map, looking for the nearest hospital. It would be a short drive, since it was located in a large city very close to the village.

They stripped off their remaining weapons and left them in the car. The man at the dealership either hadn't noticed them, or hadn't said anything. Claire hurriedly helped Chris into the hospital. It would be Chris's second visit in less than a month, and the rest would be joining him for other various injuries.

But they were all alive, and that was all that mattered. They were successful in their mission. However, even though they scored a win against Umbrella, Claire knew they had a much larger threat at hand. Soon, they would have a whole new fight on their hands.

Wesker was still out there.

**The fight continues...**


End file.
